Storm of Locusts

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  “It is an ancient game,” he says, his voice probing, curious. “Is it true that the five-fingereds play it still in Dinétah?”

  “We do.”

  “And you think you can beat me?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  He taps the stick he’s holding against his opposite palm. I didn’t see him pick the stick up, or where it came from. My adrenaline spikes, reminding me I’m not just playing the shoe game with a man, but with a god, and this is not the same as that one time I swept the tournament at my grade school gym over Keshmish break. And that Nohoilpi has likely played this game for eons.

  He waves the stick over the shoes, back and forth, scrutinizing. His hand moves toward my left moccasin.

  “Wait!” I say. “What do I win if you’re wrong?”

  “Another chance.” He grins, smile spreading. “We play until the day changes.”

  “I win, you help me get my friends back. You talk to the casino, or whatever you have to do, and you get them free.”

  “And you promise not to harm Ma’ii,” Ma’ii adds hastily.

  “I don’t care what you do to Ma’ii. That’s between you and him. But my friends . . .”

  Ma’ii’s eyes bulge, but I ignore him, keep my focus on Nohoilpi.

  “Let us play,” Nohoipli says, “and then we shall see.”

  “You will help me?”

  “I will consider your request. Should you win.”

  And I know that’s as good as I’m going to get. “Deal.”

  I remember the reason that the shoe game is played. To commemorate when the day and the night were set in place. I probably should have suggested we play roulette instead. But it’s too late now. Once we’ve begun, I can’t quit without forfeiting, and I’m not going to forfeit.

  Nohoilpi picks. Incorrectly. Ma’ii marks the score.

  I turn my back and Nohoilpi resets the game, moving the bottle cap to a new shoe. “Your turn,” he says.

  I take up the stick. Weave it through the air above the shoes, looking for the one with the cap in it. They all look the same.

  “Why do you do it, monsterslayer?” Nohoilpi asks, his voice a slithering worm in my ear.

  My eyes flicker up to his face before turning back to the shoes.

  “Why do you chase the silver-eyed boy who told you not to follow?”

  Uneasiness rolls down my spine. “How do you know about that?” I ask, trying to sound casual, even though all my alarm bells are going off. I hadn’t anticipated he would know about Kai. Or what he said to me on the videotape.

  “He’s trying to distract you,” Coyote warns.

  “I know.” It’s part of the game. I’ll do the same to him when it’s my turn. But for a moment I could swear the shoes have changed. Something subtle in the placement of my last moccasin, the one I was going to pick.

  I move the stick across the shoes, deciding.

  Nohoilpi’s smile is as sharp as a blade. “What if you are making a mistake? Risking your companions’ lives for nothing but a fantasy? Chasing this boy, the same way you chased Naayéé’ Neizghání.”

  I wince as the barb strikes home, right in my heart. I resist the temptation to touch the scar Neizghání’s dagger left on my flesh. I lose my concentration, the stick almost falling from my fingers.

  “Magdalena,” Ma’ii hisses. “Focus!”

  I blink. Grip the stick. Touch it to a shoe before I can change my mind. Nohoilpi nods, and I dig my hand into the dirt inside. My fingers brush the cap and I pull it free, triumphant. Ma’ii marks the score in my favor. Nohoilpi turns his back and I reset the game, burying the cap in one of Ma’ii’s dress shoes. Nohoilpi picks up the stick. We start again.

  “What did you do to get yourself get kicked out of Dinétah forever?” I ask him.

  Now it’s Nohoilpi’s turn to grimace. “They were jealous of me.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “What have you heard?” he asks, a hitch in his voice. “From Neizghání? From others? The Talking God?”

  My eyes cut involuntarily to Ma’ii.

  “From the trickster,” he says, his voice disdainful. “He is a fool.”

  “He trapped you in the presidential suite.”

  “I chose to stay,” Nohoilpi says roughly. “I will make it my new home. Take everything from unsuspecting travelers the way I did before the Talking God stopped me, tricked me into losing all I had. My wives, my riches, my home.”

  He taps a shoe. Digs for the cap. A win.

  Ma’ii marks the score.

  He resets, I pick up the stick, and we go again.

  “Why bother with this silly quest?” the god croons, and his voice seems to echo through my head. “Why not go home? Lick your wounds and start again? What do you owe him, this boy?”

  “Kai is my friend.”

  “A strange friend. Did he not lie to you? Use you? Did he not keep secrets?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It is known.”

  “Is it known that he sacrificed his life for me?” I bite back.

  In a rush, I pick a shoe. Drop the stick and dig my hand in. No cap.

  Nohoilpi’s smile widens. “Once again, you have picked wrong.”

  We reset.

  And so it goes, for hour after hour. Winning and losing, Ma’ii keeping score. We go back and forth. Nohoilpi whispering my darkest doubts, trying to break me. Me working to keep his voice out of my head. Trying to find his weak spot.

  The sun rises to directly overhead, unbearably hot even in the shade of the breezeway. The air is oppressive, not even a hint of the gentle wind I felt before at his arrival. At some point Ma’ii disappears briefly and comes back with a pitcher of water and a tall glass. When Nohoilpi picks up the stick for his turn, I take the minute of reprieve it offers to guzzle the water down. The tequila has passed from my system, leaving me dehydrated and needing to pee, but I don’t know the rules for taking a break. I’m afraid there aren’t any. He said until the changing of the day, which I take for sundown. I glance to the sky. Sundown, even in December, is still hours away.

  I shift, miserably uncomfortable, trying my best to ignore my aching bladder, the unrelenting sun, and the sea of doubts Nohoilpi’s raised in my head.

  And we start another round.

  “What if the silver-eyed boy does not want to be saved?” Nohoilpi asks.

  “Too bad. He’s getting saved anyway.”

  “Destined to make the same mistakes over and over again,” he says, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

  “No. This is different. Neizghání was never my friend. Kai is. And that’s what friends do. They don’t give up on someone just because they’ve fucked up.”

  Ma’ii’s watching me intently. Nohoilpi notices. “Is there no betrayal too large to be unforgiven?”

  “We all do things that need to be forgiven,” I say, thinking about Rissa’s and Aaron’s whispered confessions in the plane.

  I pick a shoe. Correctly.

  Look up at Nohoilpi. His dark eyes are focused on me.

  “Indeed,” he murmurs. “But forgiveness is not always offered.”

  “Do you wish you could be forgiven?” I ask him.

  “It is my only wish,” he whispers.

  The lights of the casino flicker on in neons of pinks and gold. I glance around me, realize the sun is going down. We have played through the entire day.

  As the last rays of light fade below the horizon and full dark settles in, I set the stick down.

  “What’s the score, Ma’ii?”

  Ma’ii makes a show of counting off the marks. “It is a tie.”

  Nohoilpi stands, fluid and supple. I unwind myself from my spot, muscles aching from sitting so long, bladder screaming.

  “Despite what you might think, some things cannot be changed,” Nohoilpi says. “The order of the day. The rising and setting of the sun. And not all things can be forgiven. You will learn this the difficult way, I
think.”

  “I want my friends back.”

  “As do I. But they have all forsaken me.”

  “Let them go.”

  “They are free to leave as they please. If they want to come outside, they will.” He touches the brim of his hat, a parting salute. Pauses and fixes his eyes on Ma’ii. “I do not like you. I suggest, brother Ma’ii, that you find a new skin before I peel that one from your body. I learned many new things in my time among the Nakai. Do not force me to demonstrate.”

  Ma’ii touches the brim of his own hat, a mirror image of Nohoilpi. The god and the trickster stare each other down. Until finally Nohoilpi turns sharply on his heel and heads back through the glass doors. At the threshold he turns back and says, “A word of advice, in exchange for seeing Mósí safely to me. Go to the old man at Wahweap.”

  “We’re going to a place called Amangiri.”

  “Wahweap first. If you do not, your mission will fail. Mark me, monsterslayer. Wahweap.” And with that he’s gone.

  I look at Coyote. “What is a Wahweap?”

  He yawns.

  “Thanks.”

  “He was not deceiving you,” he says, eyes lingering on the doors. “Your friends are free to leave the casino should they choose. I suggest you get comfortable and wait the night. You will know with the rising sun.”

  “Fine, but first I’ve got to find a bathroom.”

  Chapter 30

  I’m back on the curb watching another sunrise when I hear her footsteps. After a moment Rissa drops down to sit beside me. She’s back in her brown leather pants, but instead of her jacket, she’s sporting a tight baby-blue T-shirt that says “Arizona Angel” in a flowery rhinestone-studded script, a little gold halo hanging from the l. The morning light catches in the rhinestones, making them they sparkle like diamonds. She has bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, but she’s obviously taken a shower, and her red hair haloes around her head in tight curls. She stretches out her long legs and says nothing. She’s holding a cup in each hand, steam rising in the morning air. I can smell the heavenly aroma of coffee.

  “You look like an angel,” I tell her. “A beautiful coffee-bearing angel.”

  “Screw you,” she says good-naturedly. “It was the only shirt in the gift shop in my size. Besides, you don’t look that great yourself. That’s why I brought you this.”

  She sets down a cup, reaches into her back pocket, and pulls out a black T-shirt. Slaps it against my chest. I catch it, unfold it. Emblazoned across the chest is a dream catcher, and in the center of the dream catcher, a wolf’s head, fur limned in purples and grays, eyes shining in the morning light.

  “What is this shit?” I ask.

  Rissa shrugs. “Clean is clean, right?”

  “I’m not wearing this.”

  “Fine. Wear your dirty shirt.”

  I look down at the shirt I’m wearing. There are no visible bloodstains, no holes left behind from knife wounds or gunshots. No, check that. Part of my sleeve is sliced open from my run-in with the canyon rocks, and, if I’m honest, the problem isn’t my shirt, it’s my smell. “What I need is a shower,” I admit.

  Rissa leans in for an exaggerated sniff. “Yeah, you do.”

  “I wonder if the casino will let me in now,” I say, handing the wolf T-shirt back. She trades it for the cup of coffee. I take that, more grateful for anything than I’ve ever been in my life.

  “Coffee is from the Coyote,” she says. “A parting gift, he said. He also promised there’s nothing weird in it, but . . .” She shrugs.

  I take a sip. “I trust him.”

  “I have no idea why.”

  “Friends close and enemies closer?”

  “Speaking of friends,” she says, voice catching a bit, “I owe you an apology.” She looks over at me, eyes a little fuzzy with some emotion.

  I could not have been more surprised if Kai fell from the sky and landed in my lap.

  “For what?”

  She looks over the edge of her cup at the fading bruise on my cheek.

  “Oh, that. Yeah, you do. And for a couple of other things too.”

  “Running you out of Black Mesa?”

  “That’s one.”

  “Being a solid bitch this whole time?”

  “Two.”

  She sighs. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Am I supposed to?”

  “Jesus,” she says. “Clive was right. You really are an emotional cripple.”

  I laugh. She looks at me, trying to gauge my mood. Whatever she reads on my face makes her laugh too. And all the stress and anger and fear that’s been dogging me for weeks comes bubbling up in a mix of hysteria and release. And the more I laugh, the more Rissa laughs too, and soon we’re both howling like a couple of loons. And for a few minutes on a crumbling curb over a cup of coffee, I feel almost human.

  “At least tell me you took a shower,” I say. “Got some sleep.”

  “Less than you think,” she murmurs, sipping from her cup. “But the beds are nice.”

  I arch an eyebrow in her direction. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “If you think it means me and Aaron spent the night together, then yes.”

  “Are you forgetting that guy ran a body shop?”

  “He didn’t run it. He worked there. And he didn’t have a choice.”

  “Aren’t you the one saying we always have a choice?”

  She sighs. “Okay, then, Maggie. Let’s judge him by his worst deeds, shall we?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just mean . . . be careful. You don’t really know him. He’s a murderer.”

  “And you’re not?”

  I flinch. “That’s a low blow.”

  She holds up a hand in apology. “You’re right. I didn’t . . . I mean, we’ve all got problems, right? Aaron didn’t choose Knifetown. He’s out now, and he wants to change. Is changing. I’m not forgetting what he’s done, but I’m not holding his past against him.”

  “It’s not the past. It was literally two days ago.”

  “I’m not saying I’m going to marry him.” She exhales, brushes her hair back from her face.

  “Sorry. I guess I just don’t get what you see in him.”

  She shrugs. Moves some gravel around with her toe. “Life is short, Maggie. Even shorter since the Big Water. Sometimes you just have to take people as they are, not worry about whether they’re good for you in the long run. Because what if there is no long run? What if there’s just a night in a haunted casino in the middle of the badlands?”

  I take a long sip of my coffee. “Kai told me he loved me.”

  Rissa’s expression a mix of curious and concerned. “Yeah, I saw the tape. Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. No one’s ever told me that before.”

  She nods, surprisingly sympathetic. “If it’s true, that’s something to hold on to. It’s rarer in this world that you think.”

  “I think it’s pretty rare.”

  “Did you and Kai . . . ?”

  I shake my head. “I thought about it. Wanted to. In your mom’s library, actually.”

  She sticks out her tongue. “You did not!”

  I look over at her, a wave of sadness rolling through by body. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t get out of my head. I’ve got issues, if you haven’t notice.”

  “Oh, I noticed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey,” she says, pushing gently on my shoulder. “Don’t do that. I was wrong about you, okay? I admit it. I mean, not that you don’t have issues, because clearly . . . I thought you didn’t care about anyone but yourself. But I can see now that you care about Kai. And you care about Ben.” She cocks her head and smiles. “And considering that you stuck around Twin Arrows and played the shoe game with a god to try to free us, I think you care about me, too.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head.”

  “Sorry.” She grins, showing teeth. “I’m afraid you’re stuck w
ith me now.”

  “Is that a threat? Because you make that sound like a threat.”

  “You bet your ass it is.”

  I sit there for a while, staring out across the parking lot. Feeling something, even if I’m not exactly sure what. A good something, that much I know. A new something. Besides Kai, I haven’t had friends since I met Neizghání. Definitely not family. And I’m not sure what that means, what’s expected of me to be Rissa’s friend. But I’m willing to try.

  Another moment passes before Rissa says, “Mósí’s not coming.”

  I nod, unsurprised. “I expected as much. I think coming here was her plan all along.”

  Rissa gives me a questioning look.

  “To find Nohoilpi,” I explain. “Back in Tse Bonito when we picked her up, she made a deal with me and Clive. Safe passage to wherever she wanted to go in the Malpais in exchange for maps and supplies. She was secretive about her destination, but I think this place was it all along.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  I shrug. Blow across my coffee, sending the steam swirling. “Not really. It’s about what I expect from a cat. Where did Ma’ii get this, by the way?” I hold up my cup.

  “There’s a whole kitchen in there. Stocked like the day they left it. Anything you want that doesn’t rot.” She clears her throat. “There’s something else you need to know. I think the White Locust is Aaron’s brother.”

  I hesitate, but then say, “I do too.”

  “We were talking last night after we . . . What? You do?”

  “I heard you in the airplane. Not a lot—I wasn’t eavesdropping. But I heard enough.”

  She cradles her coffee tighter in her hands. “Aaron keeps saying he thinks he’s dead, but I don’t think he really believes it. I don’t think I believe it. Gideon can’t be that popular a name.”

  “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to have Aaron come to Amangiri with us,” I say.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you thought it.”

  “No. I’m not saying we dump him. I’m saying that’s information for us to know. That’s it. And if it becomes an issue, we’ll deal with it then.”

  “You mean kill him?”

  She looks down, runs a thumb around the edge of her cup. “I . . . hope not.”

  “So it’s not just snagging. You have feelings for Aaron.”