Windwalker

by Sharon Sala

  Chuy watched the man’s face for a sign that he’d even heard, but there was nothing. At least now he knew his name.

  Roscoe waved toward the Mesa. “Come on, Walter. You can do it. There’ll be some shade and maybe some water up in that canyon.”

  “If there is a canyon,” Beamer muttered.

  Roscoe glared. “Shut the fuck up, Beamer.”

  Beamer started walking and Chuy followed.

  Unwilling to be left behind, Roscoe struggled to catch up. The last time he looked back, Walter was still standing there staring at the ground. He swallowed past the knot in his throat and kept on moving.

  Twelve down, three to go.

  It was Chuy who led them straight into the canyon, but their elation swiftly died when they realized the riverbed was dry.

  Beamer cursed.

  Chuy thought about it, but didn’t waste his breath.

  Roscoe had a different outlook on their situation. He pointed at the dust cloud.

  “I’m thinking we just got lucky. From the looks of that dust, I think they’re in this canyon and coming toward us. All we gotta do is keep moving. They’re bound to have food and water.”

  “What if they don’t want to share,” Beamer asked.

  Chuy pulled a knife out of his boot. “I always carry a little persuasion.”

  Roscoe had the gun, but he wasn’t talking.

  Beamer wouldn’t let it go. “From the looks of that dust, there’s got to be hundreds, maybe thousands of them. We can’t force them to do anything.”

  “If they won’t give us water and won’t let us go with them, then either way, we’ll die,” Chuy said. “I’m thinking to take some with me when I go.”

  ***

  The drums were so loud now that when Layla’s bike began sputtering, she almost didn’t hear it die in time to keep it from falling over. She dropped the kickstand and quickly dismounted before helping her grandfather off.

  She was trying not to panic, but she didn’t understand. Everything the Windwalker left with her had been in endless supply. She squatted down to check to see if a wire had come loose, but saw nothing that would explain it. What she did see though made her belly roll.

  The ground was cracking from the heat. She could see cracks a good two inches wide beneath the bike, spreading out across the canyon floor like a giant spider’s web. Within moments, she heard more engines sputtering, and looked back. Whatever was going on had nothing to do with fuel.

  Firewalker stole the power. Make haste Singing Bird. There is danger ahead and behind.

  She saw nothing that would explain the warning, but knew not to ignore it. Every muscle in her body was protesting as she pulled herself upright.

  “We walk from here,” she said, touching her grandfather’s arm. “Can you do this?”

  “Is it far?”

  Layla recognized the landmarks. They were less than two miles from the Anasazi ruins.

  “Less than two miles I think, but we must hurry. I think now we have to run.”

  She saw the shock on his face, and then the determination.

  “I will run until I cannot, and then you will leave me.”

  Layla frowned. “No. I’ll carry you if I have to. I—”

  George grabbed her by both arms. “Stop. This is Layla talking, and you are no longer Layla. You are Singing Bird. You have a nation to save. It is your destiny. I am one old man who longs to see his wife’s face once more.”

  Layla wouldn’t answer. She couldn’t let herself think about making that choice. She turned toward the marchers. They were silent and swaying on their feet. Their skin was raw from wind and sun burn, their lips cracked and bleeding. There was so much white dust on their hair and faces that they all looked like ghosts—an analogy too eerie to ignore. She couldn’t let them die. She’d promised she would save them, and she still had their trust.

  “Listen to me! We are very near. I think less than two miles, but there is danger and time is running out. We have to run the rest of the way. Drop whatever you are carrying. Nothing matters but your lives. Pass the word.”

  The murmur of their voices as word spread along the march was like a breeze tickling her face, but the noise grew as it rolled back, until the sound was a distant roar.

  People began dropping their bags as she took the water bottle out of her backpack. There was less than an inch of water left. She took one small sip then handed it to George. While he drank, she shouldered the quiver of arrows and her bow, and felt for the hasp of her father’s hunting knife strapped around her knee. It was all the protection she could carry, and was hoping it was enough to handle whatever they had yet to face.

  George handed the bottle back, but there was water left.

  “Drink it Grandfather, and don’t make me ask you twice.”

  He downed it without shame.

  It wasn’t until she tossed the empty bottle onto the ground that the drumbeats began to get faster. When the bottle suddenly flattened and began curling inward, she realized the heat had intensified.

  “Run,” she screamed, and took her grandfather by the hand.

  The thunder of the footsteps behind her was quickly muffled by the drumbeats and the singers chanting in her head. They were calling her to hurry.

  They ran until they were too winded to run another step, then they jogged until lapsing into long, staggering steps. She kept hearing cries of dismay and wails of disbelief behind her. Some were falling who would not be getting up.

  She had not let go of her grandfather’s hand and was afraid to look at him for fear she’d see quit in his eyes. They were close now. Maybe a mile, maybe less.

  Her lungs felt like they were on fire and it hurt to draw breath. At first she’d been sweating, but when she realized that had stopped, she knew her body was shutting down. She sent a desperate message to the Windwalker.

  Help us. You do not bring us this far to let us fail.

  You are Singing Bird. You lead. You do not fail.

  She looked up just as three men walked out from behind a twin pair of spires standing sentinel in the middle of the gorge.

  Now she understood Windwalker’s warning.

  White men! And they looked as bad as she felt. Despite their condition, she knew why they were here and they didn’t belong.

  “Get back!” she yelled, but they kept coming toward her.

  One called out. “We need food and water.”

  “We have nothing,” she said, and gave her grandfather’s hand a little squeeze before turning it loose.

  It was Chuy who took the lead. He was crazy desperate and wanted this over with. He palmed his knife and started toward her.

  “I know who you are,” he yelled, carrying the knife close against his leg.

  Layla tensed. The drums were thundering—the singers chanting at fever pitch. This man’s threat was obvious. If they didn’t get what they wanted, they were willing to die for the chance to take it.

  “You have to help us, Layla Birdsong. It is your duty,” Chuy yelled.

  Moving sideways to draw danger away from the ones behind her, Layla notched an arrow.

  “Get back now. Go away or you will die,” she yelled.

  Then a second man started toward her, only this one had a gun.

  “We’re gonna die either way,” Roscoe yelled. “I ain’t got nothin’ left to lose.”

  She didn’t have time to think. He was already aiming for her when she swung the bow. His shot went off, but her arrow was true. It pierced his chest, then all the way through his back.

  Roscoe’s screams were bouncing from rim to rim inside the canyon as he dropped the gun. He fell to his knees; still trying to pull the arrow out as he died.

  Thirteen down, two to go.

  Roscoe’s death galvanized Beamer.

  He grabbed the g
un Roscoe dropped, but took aim too late. He heard the thud of the arrow, but still hadn’t felt the pain as he looked down at his chest in disbelief.

  Sonofabitch! He was gonna die just like in the old cowboy and Indian movies he used to watch when he was a kid. Only in those movies, it was the cowboys who always won.

  “What the fuck,” he mumbled, and dropped.

  Fourteen down, one to go.

  While his two companions had been trying to play shoot-out with the woman, Chuy Garza had been getting closer. Now he was so close he could see the scar on her cheek and another on her belly. He made his move.

  Layla heard men behind her coming to her aid as the last man rushed her, but they would be too late. Without time to get off another shot, she dropped the bow and palmed her knife just as he jumped.

  One moment she was on her feet, and the next thing she knew she was on her back and fighting for her life.

  Chuy was ready to die. He knew it was going to happen. He couldn’t fight them all, but he was taking her with him. He was swinging his knife in an arc toward her chest when he realized she’d gotten her knees drawn up between them. Her feet were on his chest as he suddenly went airborne; landing so hard on his back that he lost his breath and the knife. He was still scrambling for air and a weapon when the woman leaned down and slit his throat.

  Chuy’s last sight of life was the fire in her eyes, and a small silver charm swinging from a necklace around her neck.

  Fifteen down—none to go.

  Layla kicked the knife out of his reach without bothering to watch him die. She picked up her bow, shouldered the quiver of arrows, and was turning to look for her grandfather when she saw him lying on the ground. A crowd of people were kneeling around him.

  The pain that rolled through her was as visceral as the day she had buried her father.

  She ran screaming, “Grandfather! Grandfather! But it was already too late. Roscoe’s first shot had hit him right between the eyes, and the blood that had spilled into the earth beneath him was already dry and blowing away like dust.

  The pain of his loss was overwhelming. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t focus. And there were no tears left in her body to cry.

  Run, Singing Bird. There are others coming from behind. Run now. Tomorrow you weep.

  It was as if Windwalker had grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet.

  “Run now!” she screamed. “Run for your lives.”

  She turned toward the steady drumbeat and began running, lengthening her stride with every step.

  The singing was in her head, in her heart, in her gut. She felt their power as if they’d tied a rope to her waist to pull her home. When she rounded the curve in the canyon wall and saw the ruins, she shouted aloud in a cry that matched what she heard in her head.

  Although they had yet to cross over, they had reached the destination, which reminded her that she didn’t know where to go from here. As she ran, a large part of the canyon wall appeared to be melting. The air between them was dancing from the heat waves coming up from the ground and she feared the rock was melting from the Firewalker’s heat.

  Then where there had been rock, came a burst of light, and inside she could see the silhouettes of the Old Ones coming toward them, spilling out into the canyon, waving them in.

  Relief swept overwhelmed her. That was it! They’d done it! Now all she had to get them through.

  The footsteps behind her were like thunder, the ground shook beneath her feet as they came running. They’d seen it, too.

  “Keep moving! Don’t stop! Your brothers and sisters are behind you,” she shouted, waving them on, pushing them forward.

  She saw their faces as they ran past her; heard their voices shouting her name—shouting “Layla, Layla, Layla,” until she was reeling from the sound.

  She didn’t move from where she was standing, still keeping guard as she lifted up those who had fallen. One hour ran into the second, and they were still staggering past her with bloody lips and sunburned skin; red eyes in ghost faces passing her by. She didn’t know their names, but she felt their joy.

  The line seemed unending, the sky was white-hot, the fireball looming larger, and the ground was burning her feet through the soles of her boots. The world was only degrees away from exploding into a ball of fire as big as the one in the sky.

  Chapter Twelve

  President Farley lost focus about the same time the last vehicles quit. They’d been on foot for hours and somewhere along the way they joined up with another group, and then another, until they were walking thousands strong. Some recognized him, but were too miserable to care. In the grand scheme of things, a president no longer mattered. Not when they were all on the verge of incineration.

  Another hour had come and gone when they began seeing the bodies of people who’d been ahead of them. The stench was only slightly less shocking than their black and bloated carcasses.

  Farley thought about his Chief of Staff, and the generals in the DOD. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered why they were still waiting to fire the missiles? What the hell could have gone wrong?

  He would have known the answer sooner if his brain wasn’t frying as he walked. When the answer finally hit him, he actually cried out in despair. Had it now been for one of his bodyguards, he would have fallen.

  Without power, they could not launch. Without a launch, they didn’t have a devil’s chance of salvation. There was no way, even if Layla Birdsong was standing before him, that he could make everything happen fast enough to save a nation. At that point, he abdicated what was left of his conscience and started running, desperate to get closer to the front, leaving his entourage and responsibilities behind.

  And then like a miracle, word began passing down through the hikers that the Indians had been sighted. As they approached an overlook a short time later, the march of Indians down in the canyon below was plainly visible.

  As the crow flies, the Indians were only two, maybe three miles ahead of them. Walking, it would be longer, but it was enough that they’d been sighted. Someone shouted down at them to wait, and then others began screaming and yelling until their voices became a roar.

  The sound carried down into the gorge. The People looked back and then up. When they saw the horde on the ridge above them, they broke out in a run.

  And just like that, the ones above them gave chase.

  The race was on.

  ***

  Binini Islands—West Indies

  The ocean was boiling. Whatever had been alive below was now floating dead upon the surface of the water. The sight was horrifying, and Leland Prince had finally come to the realization that he would die.

  He’d always thought he’d be philosophical about his passing, imagining he would be clean and comfortable in his own bed, surrounded by servants tending to his every need until his last breath had come and gone.

  He’d never given a thought to an end like this, and believed it a most inglorious and disturbing way for such an interesting man as he to be snuffed.

  He’d gathered the servants around him for company rather than comfort, although several of them were closer to death than he. The twins’ nursemaid had gone into a swoon from the heat, leaving the boys in the house to fend for themselves.

  Prince had been shocked by the sight of them pilfering through his treasures, but was so overcome by ennui that it took a few moments for him to accept that when they were all blown to bits, it wouldn’t matter what broke or what didn’t.

  His head was spinning as he gazed around his library, past the books and maps, the diaries and oddities that he’d collected throughout his life, and remembered how the children had come to be. They were interesting children, but a failed and disappointing experiment. When he realized they had his crystal paperweight—the precious portal key—he started to tell them to put it down then let it go and sat in a s
tupor watching them play.

  Even in this most miserable state of heat and starvation, they seemed oblivious. They were jabbering between themselves in manic fashion, turning the crystal over and over from point to point, rather than flat side to flat side. Then one of them stood it on a point, and to Prince’s shock, it balanced perfectly upright. The other one crowed, then spun it like a top.

  He expected it to spin until it ran out of momentum, but instead of falling, it continued to spin, faster and faster until he began to hear a hum, and the air around him was beginning to vibrate. When he saw a small pinpoint of light forming on the wall behind the twins’ backs, he nearly fainted.

  “Fuck me blind!” he shouted, and stood up.

  The twins threw themselves into each other’s arms. When Prince moved toward the desk, they moved in unison, like Siamese twins bound together for life, backing up as fast as he was approaching.

  The cube was spinning so fast it had virtually disappeared, and the light behind the boys’ heads was the size of a window.

  Prince’s heart was pounding as he leaped, but the boys were faster. They went backwards into the light and disappeared, taking the light and the crystal with them.

  The portal closed.

  The crystal was gone.

  Prince screamed, and began hammering on the wall with both fists until his hands were shredded and his heart was pounding so hard he thought his head would explode.

  He’d been shown salvation, only to be dropped back into hell. How bloody unfair of fate to have done that.

  He turned around, looking past the people in the room through the windows behind them, to see a moving wall of water higher than the house.

  The wait was over.

  ***

  It was nearing two hours since the portal had opened, and still the people kept coming. Layla was standing at the edge of the light, but the tempo of drumming had changed to a drumbeat for war, and the Anasazi spirits were no longer singing. All Layla could hear was a continuous war cry. It was no longer a beacon. It was a warning, and her wait was almost over.