by Sharon Sala
She let up on the gas, hit the brakes, and slid sideways in yet another cloud of dust. When she killed the engine, the silence was unexpected and eerie. Not even the babies cried. She got off, unaware how fierce she appeared as she strode to him and threw her arms around his neck.
“Grandfather,” she whispered.
He hugged her to him then stepped back for a better look.
The gray sports bra she was wearing was stained with dust and what looked like old blood. The silver chain around her neck gleamed bright against skin two shades darker than when he’d last seen her. The scars on her cheek and belly were noticeable, as was the one he could feel on the back of her arm. Her hair was loose and blowing wild around her face and the red cloth tied around her forehead, sweat-soaked. But it was the look in her eyes that shocked him. He didn’t know her anymore. His dreams had been true. His Layla was gone forever. It was Singing Bird who came home.
“You came alone,” he said.
The pain on her face was instantaneous, and then just as quickly gone.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Will you come eat? Rest?”
“There is no time. I need to talk to the people,” she said.
He frowned. “We have no audio equipment, no microphone.”
“They will hear me,” she said, and moved past him to climb up into the pickup he’d just abandoned, then up on the cab where he’d been standing.
The crowd shifted as they watched her climb, and then instinctively moved forward.
Layla held up her hands. As she did, a soft wind began to swirl around her, then over the heads of the crowd, carrying her words to even those farthest away.
“Our world is dying, and we will die with it. The Windwalker has shown me how to save you. Will you come?”
Their answer was an unending war cry that sent a chill through Layla’s body
She held up her hands again, and silence prevailed.
“In less than twelve hours, people will be here who do not belong, wanting us to take them with us. We have to be gone before they arrive. I will protect you. You will be safe. But you have to do something for me, as well. You must keep moving, and if there are some who fall by the wayside, pick them up. I will stop every four hours for fifteen minutes. You have to lose your modesty and pee where you stand.”
The shock of her words was evident on all the faces, but she kept on talking.
“We will drive, and then we will walk. The Cherokee had their Trail of Tears and survived it. The Dineh had their Long Walk, and survived it. But this is for all The People. It will be our Last Walk, and we will survive it, too. You will abandon everything but what you can safely carry. Possessions mean nothing. It is The People who must be saved, but there is no need for panic. I will leave no one behind.”
She pointed up at the fireball still blazing toward earth.
“We are already burning. Get in your vehicles and follow me out in single file, now!”
A last gust of wind swept across the crowd as they began putting out their cook fires and loading family up.
Layla jumped down then paused at the tailgate of the truck, searching the faces of those most familiar.
They looked at her as if she were a stranger. She felt their awe and their fear and understood. A month ago if someone had told her this would happen she would have laughed in their face. She looked at her grandfather. He was waiting for her orders, so she gave one.
“Ride with someone. The less vehicles we have to move, the better.”
“You ride with me,” Leland Benally said, and quickly took the duffel bags from the back seat of his truck, tossed them in the truck bed, and shifted his children into the back seat to make room for George.
George tossed his bag in with the others and got in.
The Nantay brothers were watching her. They too, were looking at her as if they’d never seen her before. It took her a few moments to notice that they were out of uniform and then realized the tribal police was a thing of the past.
“Will you and the other police watch for stragglers?”
They nodded.
“Then we go.”
Her grandfather handed her a bottle of water and Johnston Nantay handed her a pair of wraparound sunglasses. She took a drink and then dropped it in the backpack, put on the glasses and got on the bike. There was a moment when her body protested then the feeling was gone. She started the engine, revved the motor and put it in gear.
The Last Walk had begun.
***
The world was in chaos. Up to date broadcasts were streaming nonstop, doomsday preachers were carrying signs to repent. The President held one news conference and then went into hibernation mode with the heads of state, desperate to make something happen.
Nuclear missiles were aimed and ready, waiting for the meteor to get into range.
President Farley had demanded a launch time, and Runyon had given up trying to explain how shooting nuclear missiles wasn’t going to work and gone home. They were all going to die and he wanted to be with his wife.
Leland Benally’s wife, Beverly, was in her hotel room in Las Vegas lying on the bed. It was too hot to move around outside. The motor in the air conditioner was on high as it grudgingly emitted little farts of cool air.
She’d been watching the news for days, and given up hoping Leland was ever going to return her calls. She knew he and her children were no longer home. It was not lost upon her that she’d sold her soul for money she would never get to spend, and that she’d run away from the only place that might still be safe.
She’d thought about seeing how long it would take her to gamble away a half million dollars, but her heart was no longer in it. She knew she should be on her knees praying for forgiveness, but was too heartsick to care.
A few hours later when the air conditioner burned up from trying to cool a dying planet, she stripped off her clothes, threw her money all over the bed, swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills and then lay down on that which she’d sold her soul to keep, and closed her eyes. Even now, she was still choosing the easy way out.
***
Lydia Foster was sitting in a small café, drinking Ouzo and eating bread and cheese with the man she’d picked up last night. The sex had been good, but the Ouzo was better. She’d lose him sometime today before dark, This morning she realized she would rather face dying the same way she’d faced her life—alone.
There were things she regretted, but it no longer mattered.
The man recognized the forlorn expression, understood the cause, topped off her glass, and then lifted his for a toast.
“To the beautiful Lydia. Stin ygeiá mas.”
She raised her glass.
“To our health,” she echoed, and downed it in one gulp.
***
Airport radar was going crazy, resulting in the cancellation of flights and the grounding of all planes. Anything to do with magnetic resonance or imaging was either giving false readings or no readings at all. Communication was spotty and television signals were all but gone.
A scientific opinion offered the possibility that the meteor had metal properties that, in effect, turned it into a giant magnet, impacting everything magnetic down on earth.
President Farley was torn. He knew his elected duty was to stand with the people of this country, but at the same time, he wanted to abandon it all and make a run for Arizona. He was part Cheyenne. Granted it wasn’t something he’d ever bragged about until he wanted the Native American vote to get elected. But if they had a way out of this hell, he wanted to go with them. But since Layla Birdsong had refused to come to him, he was going to have to go to her.
Only how did he make this exit without having it appear as if he was abandoning the nation to its fate alone? As it turned out, it was his Chief of Staff, Will Schulter, who he decided to leave in charge.
***
Farley was standing at the windows of the Oval Office, his heart in turmoil as he struggled with his choices.
Will Schulter knew the man as well as anyone on earth, and knew his heart was in the right place, even if he thought he was mad for believing some Indian woman could save the world. But the situation was now so dire that it didn’t really matter what he thought. When he was called, he entered the office, saw him at the windows and walked up beside him.
“You wanted to see me, Sir?’
Farley didn’t have to fake a serious expression.
“I need you to help me. I’m going to take a squadron of soldiers with me to Arizona. If I can find that woman, we may still have a chance to save the nation, but I can’t let anyone know I’m gone. They will think I’ve abandoned them to their own fate.”
“Yes, Mr. President, I know.”
Farley put a hand on Will’s shoulder.
“While I’m gone, I need you to keep up the pretense that I’m still on the premises. Can you do that for me? Of course we’ll stay connected by phone.”
“I can do anything you ask of me, Sir. Do what you have to do, Mr. President and Godspeed.”
“With any luck, I’ll be back by this time tomorrow. Take care Will, and if anything happens to me while I’m gone, you have the Vice President’s number. You know what to do.”
Will was too shocked to say more as the President left the office.
Farley dressed incognito, wearing rough clothing for a rough climate, and left for the military base without a single sense of guilt that he was abandoning the people who had put him in office.
Planes weren’t flying, but he was the President and he had resources. He left D.C. in a parade of cars carrying CIA, met up with a convoy from a military base along the way, and headed for Arizona, unprepared for the up-close and personal view of the growing devastation.
***
All things plastic were melting. Mailboxes, decorative fencing, car bumpers, shades on street lights, children’s shoes, toys—there was no end, and it was only getting worse.
Highways were bumper to bumper with people trying to get to other family members—some going back to their places of birth to be with loved ones. The military was on alert, but there were soldiers going AWOL to get home to their families. The growing public opinion was that the earth was doomed. No one wanted to die alone.
And there were the others who were trying to get to Arizona, convinced that if all those Indians had gone there, then they knew something the rest of the world didn’t. It was an ‘every man for himself mad dash to salvation,’ regardless of who they had to walk over to get there.
Farley and his entourage were halfway to Arizona when the computers in the country went down. Which meant the ATMs and gas pumps quit working, and it turned fear into full-blown panic.
He got the news when they stopped to fuel up, and found out it was no longer possible. He was trying to call Will when a bodyguard relayed the message that cell phone service was gone. The satellites were either out of orbit or burning up. He felt like someone had just yanked the rug out from under him.
“Then how do we communicate?” he asked.
“We sent some of the soldiers up ahead to recon. There’s a military base not far from here. They should have enough supplies to get us to Arizona, sir. Don’t worry. We’ll get you there.”
“Yes, well done,” Farley said, and got back in.
He was used to people solving his problems, but the increasing fall of technology was unnerving. All he needed was a little more time. To assuage his conscience, he envisioned finding Layla Birdsong, and finding a way to stop the impending disaster. So while the military began setting up checkpoints along the way to furnish fuel to get their President to his destination, the rest of the world was coming undone.
***
When Emile Harper got the intel that Farley was on his way to Arizona, he lost it. If the President of the United States was looking for a woman and some legendary Navajo spirit to save them, then they were fucked. Economically, the country had ground to a halt. Food and water were at a premium. People were streaming out of cities in droves, highways were bumper to bumper with cars running out of fuel, and he was going home. He had a bottle of Dom he’d been saving for New Year’s Eve and a tin of his favorite caviar. He walked out of his office and stopped at his secretary’s desk.
“Go home, Phyllis.”
“Sir?”
“Go home. There’s nothing left for us here. Whatever you need to do to make your peace with God and family, now is the time to do it.”
She went pale. “Are you saying—”
“That we’re toast? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Thank you for your years of service. It was much appreciated.”
She was sobbing as he left the office.
The sun was brutal as he exited the building. He put on his sunglasses, took off his suit coat and dropped it where he stood, removed his tie, unbuttoned the top three buttons of his dress shirt, and started walking. His apartment wasn’t far, and he’d been meaning to take some time off for quite a while now. He thought of the champagne again, then looked up, gave the meteor the finger, and kept on walking.
One way or another, he was going out in style.
***
Farley was in the front seat of the SUV with one of his bodyguards when they finally reached tribal headquarters on the Navajo reservation. Except for a jail cell full of men who looked like mercenaries screaming to be let out, it didn’t take long to realize it was deserted.
They freed the jailbirds and sent the soldiers out on a recon mission, looking for someone who could tell them where to find Layla Birdsong. He was concerned, but at this point nowhere near panic.
They finally found an old woman sitting outside on a bench on the shady side of her tiny house, and brought Farley to her. He got out with his political face on, expecting, at the least, to be recognized.
As he approached, he watched her stand, bracing herself with a thick walking stick. Her long gray hair was in two braids hanging down her shoulders—her skirt was a brown the color of the dust, and the blue long-sleeved shirt she wore over it went halfway to her knees. The ornate belt at her waist was silver Conchos, but her feet were bare.
As hot as the earth was, he thought it strange.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’m President James Farley and I was wondering if—”
She interrupted him. “What do you want?”
“I was wondering if I might talk to someone in charge.”
“They’re gone,” she said.
She said it with such finality that his heart skipped.
“Gone where?”
She shrugged and sat down.
So he started over. “I see you aren’t wearing shoes. Isn’t the earth hot to your feet?”
“I am too old to make the Last Walk so my daughter is wearing my shoes. She said it would be her way of taking me with her.”
Farley felt like crying, but showing weakness wouldn’t help and so he started over.
“Do you know who I am?”
She looked up, squinting against the light. “Is there something wrong with you?”
He frowned. “No. Why do you ask that?”
“You already told me your name, so why would you ask me if I knew you?”
“Let me rephrase my question.” He pointed to the other end of her bench. “May I?”
She laid her walking stick across it. “I sit alone.”
This was getting them nowhere and Farley didn’t have time to waste. He glanced up. The meteor was too close and he was so damned scared it was all he could do to form words.
“Old woman, what is your name?”
She pointed her stick at the others with him. “You take your men and leave now. I don’t want to talk to you. I
am waiting to die.”
He grabbed her by the arm. It was a mistake, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“You don’t understand! I’m trying to save people’s lives. I need to find Layla Birdsong. I need her to tell me what to do to stay safe.”
“She is not here and she will tell you nothing. She belongs to the Dineh. She belongs to our People, not to you.”
“But I’m Indian. I’m part Cheyenne.”
“You smell like a white man,” she said. “Go away. I am waiting to die.”
Frustrated, Farley turned her loose, and as he did, a tiny mouse shot out from beneath the house only inches ahead of a rattler.
The snake struck. The mouse’s shriek was high-pitched and brief, but seeing that life and death moment so unexpectedly was shocking.
“Oh my God! Did you see that?” Farley cried.
“Everything dies,” she muttered, and closed her eyes.
At that point, two of the soldiers came running toward him with a pair of binoculars.
“Mr. President. You need to see this.”
He looked where they were pointing—far to the north to what looked like a long line of smoke above the surrounding mesas.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Best guess I’d say that’s how much dust a nation of people on the move might stir up.”
Farley didn’t have to be told twice. He tossed them the binoculars. “Let’s go. The soldiers will lead the way,” he said, and ran for his car.
About thirty minutes out, they began seeing people on foot, some dragging bags, others barely dragging themselves. And the farther they went, the more people they passed, and none of them were Native American. So, there were others looking for Birdsong. It didn’t make him happy, but he was the President. He would certainly get first dibs on a free pass to safety.
***
The air was so hot it felt thick, and the dust cloud from the Last Walk was a tracking device for anyone close enough to see it. Between the sun and the fireball, the sky was not only white-hot, but almost too bright to bear.