Whirlwind

by Charles L. Grant

  Which, he thought glumly, they probably wouldn’t get anyway. If the Indians wanted as little to do as possible with whites in general, representatives of the government in Washington, especially the law, would no doubt be treated as if they had the plague.

  Then he opened the door, took a quick step back, and said, “You have an ark handy?”

  The storm had finally reached them.

  Scully made a wordless sound of amazement as they watched the rain pound the courtyard in dark and light streaks shot through with silver, pockets of steam rising from the ground in swirling patches that were shredded and whisked away. It was so heavy, they could barely see the wall.

  Scully turned on the rest of the lights and rubbed her upper arms. “Close the door, it’s cold.”

  Mulder didn’t mind. After walking around in a furnace all day, the sensation was luxurious.

  And the rain fascinated him.

  “It can’t last long,” she said, although it sounded like a question.

  He had seen downpours before, but this was more than that, this was an outright deluge; it didn’t seem possible it could last for more than a few minutes. There couldn’t be that much water in the sky.

  Ten minutes later he closed the door and shrugged. “I guess we’re stuck. Unless you want to try it anyway.”

  “Out there? In that?”

  Looking out the window didn’t do any good; the rain smothered it, completely obliterating the outside world.

  He wished, however, that the wind would rise. It didn’t seem natural, all that rain and no wind to whip it.

  Scully moved over to the bed and picked up the receiver. “I’ll try Garson again. I’d like to know what he’s been doing all day.”

  He would, too. He had already run through a couple of scenarios, neither of which he liked. He doubted seriously that the man was upset because of their arrival; they were all supposed to be working the same territory no matter what state that territory was in. He also didn’t think Garson was part of what they were looking for; it felt wrong. Nothing more; it just felt wrong.

  Scully hung up. “Nothing. Sparrow’s been there, but there are no results yet.”

  Rain slapped at the door, a little wind at last.

  A constant thudding overhead, like an army marching across the roof.

  “Talk to me, Mulder,” Scully said then.

  He sat at the table, drew invisible patterns on the surface to focus him and, at the same time, to let him think aloud without built-in restrictions.

  “It’s a cliché,” he said slowly, “but maybe it’s true here, who knows? What we know for sure is that Paulie and the Constellas had Konochine jewelry. Except for that partial chain you found, it was gone when the bodies were discovered. Destroyed or taken, we don’t know yet. But it’s gone.

  “Maybe this Lanaya brought out the wrong kind. Maybe it has some religious or traditional significance we don’t understand yet. Everyone we’ve talked to has made a big deal of telling us they don’t want contact, minimal contact at best. So it’s possible that exposing those pieces to the outside could be considered a form of sacrilege. There might be some on the reservation who would do anything to get it back.”

  “You’re right, it is a cliché.” She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her thighs. “And don’t forget, Lanaya is one of their own. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that. Not even a careless one.”

  “Then maybe it’s the very fact that the pieces went out at all.”

  “He’s been doing it for years.”

  “He’s been fighting them for years.”

  “But he’s still been doing it.”

  Right, he thought; and by now, after all this time, hundreds of people must have Konochine rings and necklaces and who knew what else? Hundreds, at least, but only three had died.

  A damp chill filtered into the room.

  The light flickered once and settled, startling him into the realization that there was no thunder, no lightning. How could clouds like that, with all that power, not have thunder and lightning?

  Scully rose and walked to the bathroom door, walked back and sat again. “I’d still like to know how it was done.”

  “Scoured. Dr. Rios said scoured.”

  “How?”

  He almost said, “Sentient Brillo,” but changed his mind when he saw the don’t you dare, Mulder look on her face.

  Instead, he answered, “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Yes!” She slapped her leg angrily. “Yes, damnit, we do have a clue! We just don’t know what it is.”

  There was no response to exasperation like that, so he drew patterns again, over and over, while he listened to the thunder the army made on the roof.

  “Sangre Viento,” he said at last.

  “It has a nice ring, but what does it mean, aside from the translation?”

  Patterns; always patterns.

  He watched the finger move, trying not to control it consciously. Automatic writing that did nothing but draw senseless patterns.

  Thirty minutes after the storm began, he tilted his chair back, reached over and opened the door, squinting against a spray that dropped ice on his cheeks. “This is impossible. When the hell is it going to end?”

  And the rain stopped.

  He almost toppled backward at the abruptness of the cessation. One second he couldn’t see an inch past the tree, the next all there was were glittering droplets falling from the leaves and eaves, and a slow runoff of water along narrow, shallow trenches set along the paths.

  He looked at Scully and said, “Am I good, or what?”

  Donna whispered a prayer when the rain finally ended and the sun came out. One more quick turn around the house and a check of the back yard, and she would leave. The Cherokee was packed; she had never unpacked. It had been a stupid idea anyway, thinking she could use the rain for cover. She wouldn’t have made it half a mile on the interstate before she would have been forced to pull over. This way she was calmer, and had a clearer head.

  She had had time to think.

  Now it was time to fish or cut bait.

  The bone pile had been touched by only a fringe of the storm, washed clean and gleaming.

  The water had been taken by leaves and roots and the porous desert floor; there were no puddles, and there was no wind.

  Nevertheless, the sand stirred.

  SIXTEEN

  Mulder stepped outside and inhaled deeply several times. Too many scents mingled for him to identify, but they were sweet, and he was pleased. He had caught Scully’s determination, and with the dust washed away, even the prospects of success seemed more bright.

  You’re pushing it, he told himself, and didn’t much care. It felt pretty good, and he took that where he could get it.

  Scully followed, checking to be sure the door locked behind her. A detour to the front desk assured them that the clerk had Mulder’s portable phone number and would relay calls or messages as soon as they were received.

  Just as they were about to turn away from the desk, Scully gave a nod toward the side entrance. “I think we have company.”

  A tall man in denim and a ponytail walked toward them, taking off his hat as he approached. “Agent Mulder? Agent Scully?”

  Mulder nodded warily.

  The man held out his hand. “Nick Lanaya. We were supposed to meet later.” He cocked a lean hip as he shifted his weight. “Sorry I’m early, but I took a chance catching you. I was going to stop at a friend’s first, but the storm…”

  “Actually,” Scully said, “your timing is perfect. We were about to drive out to the Mesa.”

  His eyes widened. “Alone?”

  “No. We were hoping someone from the Double-H would go along. But,” she added with a smile, “now you’re here, which is exactly what we need.”

  “Damn right about that,” he said, matching her with a smile of his own. “Today’s Thursday. You go there today, they’ll probably shoot you.”

  “What?” Mulder sai
d.

  “Well, not really shoot you, Agent Mulder, but you wouldn’t have gotten in. It’s a…call it a holy day. Kind of like Sunday, only a little more intense.” He used the hat to gesture toward the restaurant. “So what do you say we have something to eat? Chuck said you had a few questions, and I answer better on a full stomach.”

  Not long after they were at a table, this time near the entrance. Other diners had already begun to arrive, and the room was more lively, more cheerful than last time. The contrast was startling, and it took Mulder a few minutes before he was able to concentrate on what Lanaya told him.

  Anecdotes at first, as their meal arrived and they ate, trying to give them a feel for his people. They were conservative, hard-working, and surprisingly, they didn’t feel at all oppressed.

  “They’ve been at Sangre Viento since their Time began. No one has ever defeated them in war badly enough to drive them out, although the Apache gave them a hard time for a while, a hundred years or so back, and the white man hasn’t seen any need to do anything but leave them pretty much alone.” He seemed slightly embarrassed. “To tell you the truth, it makes them kind of smug.”

  Scully brushed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “I understand you’re an important person there.”

  Lanaya closed his eyes as he laughed, shook his head and waved his fork. “Lord, no. Important?” He laughed again. “Not the way you mean, no. Some sort of authority figure, a position of power, something like that?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “Nope. Sorry. I’m important only in that I keep their contacts with the outside healthy, that’s all. They’re not stupid, Agent Scully. They don’t live primitively; not by their standards, anyway. They just pick and choose what they want from the white man’s world, that’s all. Some have TV, everybody has a radio. Schooling is important. I’m not the only one who went to college.”

  “But you went back.”

  “Yes. Yes, I went back. Often there are ties too strong to be broken.” His left hand moved to his chest and away, but not before Mulder spotted a bulge there.

  A medicine bag, he thought; he carries his power with him.

  “Anyway, what is it, exactly, that you want to know?”

  Mulder watched Scully’s smile, and hid one of his own. The man was taken with her, and whether he knew it or not, Scully had already gotten more from him than he probably wanted them to know.

  They.

  He said they instead of we.

  Scully’s next question was predictable, and Mulder couldn’t help feeling a faint disappointment at the answer.

  “No, there’s no significance to any of the things I bring out for Donna to sell. Traditional designs, that’s all.” He chuckled. “Once in a while, the designs are…borrowed, shall we say? The artisans get bored doing the same thing all the time.”

  “You mean they fake it? Pass their work off as someone else’s?”

  “I mean they get bored, Agent Scully. What they use, they make their own.”

  They again.

  Mulder began to wonder.

  Suddenly the man grunted and clutched at his stomach. Scully was on her feet immediately, but he waved her away. “It’s okay,” he said, gasping a little, his eyes watering. “Took me by surprise, is all.”

  Scully stood by him anyway. “What did?”

  Lanaya gestured toward his plate. “Ulcer, I think.”

  “What? You have an ulcer and you eat this stuff?” She rolled her eyes and took her seat. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Maybe.” He took a roll of antacid tablets from his pocket and popped one into his mouth. “No, definitely. But I keep hoping I’ll get used to it before I die.”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t,” she told him. “Because that stuff will end up killing you.”

  He laughed, and Mulder managed a polite smile in response.

  He was getting damn tired of people lying to his face.

  There was someone in the backyard.

  She heard movement as she dropped her suitcase into the passenger seat, and swore. With hardly any neighbors to speak of, who the hell would be out there? Unless it was a stray cat, or…she glared. Or a goddamn coyote.

  She hurried into the house, yanked open a desk drawer, and pulled out a wood-stock .38. She had never given a damn what the cautions were; it was always loaded. A single woman living alone would scarcely have the time to load if someone broke in in the middle of the night.

  She hefted it, thumbed off the safety, and marched through the Pullman kitchen to the back door. As far as she could tell, the yard was empty, its grass long since given over to weeds and bare earth.

  Still…

  A low, constant hissing.

  Shit, she thought; she had left the outside faucet on. That’s what it was—water spilling onto the weeds beneath the damn faucet. She tried to remember when she last was out here, and couldn’t. Good God, it could have been as long as a week, maybe more. Her water bill was going to be—

  She laughed and shook her head.

  Who cared about a stupid water bill? She wasn’t going to be around to pay it anyway. Nevertheless, a twinge of guilt at all that waste made her open the door and step outside, swinging immediately to the right and crouching under the kitchen window. She already had her hand on the faucet when she realized it was dry.

  No water.

  “What the hell?”

  The noise grew louder, and now she heard what she thought was whispering.

  She rose and turned in the same move.

  Too terrified to scream, she managed to fire twice before she was struck and spun away from the house, her arms flailing, her clothes shredded, strips of flesh taken and flung against the wall, her eyes blinded, her lips gone.

  When it was over, she remained on her feet for as long as it took for a breeze to touch her.

  When she fell, no one heard her.

  Lanaya folded his napkin beside his empty plate. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll pick you up in the morning. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.”

  Mulder reached for a glass of water. “You don’t sound very proud of your home.”

  “It’s for your own good, Agent Mulder. And there’s not much to see.” He pushed his chair back, but neither Mulder nor Scully moved. “I have to admit, I’m still not convinced you’re looking in the right place. Coincidence, that’s all it is.”

  “Maybe. Probably, if you like. But as I already said to someone, we have no choice.”

  “Sure, no problem. I understand.”

  Mulder turned around, looking for a waiter to signal so he could get the check. Who he saw was Sheriff Sparrow coming through the front door. By his attitude, the way he snapped a question at the clerk, who had walked over to greet him, it was business. Bad business.

  “Scully,” he said quietly, and excused himself to hurry into the lobby.

  Sparrow brushed the clerk aside with a brusque nod and stared over Mulder’s shoulder. “News,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Lanaya been with you all this time?”

  Mulder nodded. “What’s happened?”

  “You already eat?”

  “Sheriff, would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

  Sparrow stared, shook himself without moving a muscle, and blew out a sigh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap like that. But I guess you’re in luck, Agent Mulder. There’s been another one.”

  Mulder beckoned to Scully automatically as he said, “Who?”

  “Donna Falkner.”

  Shots, two, maybe three, the sheriff told them as he sped out of the parking lot. A neighbor went over to complain, couldn’t get an answer at the front door and wandered around to the back. As soon as he saw the body, he called the sheriff’s office. As soon as the first deputy saw the body, he called the sheriff, knowing the FBI was in on this case.

  Several patrol cars were already on the scene when they arrived, and an ambulance backed into the d
riveway. Yellow crime scene ribbon fluttered around the property. A handful of people stood in the lot across the street.

  “How well did you know her?” Mulder asked as Sparrow led them around the garage to the back.

  “She was a pain in the ass.” A sharp wave. “She was okay, though.”

  “Did you know she was going on vacation?”

  Sparrow stopped and turned at the corner. “Are you crazy? She never went on vacation. Working herself to death is what she was. Wanted to be a goddamn millionaire before she was thirty-five.”

  Mulder stepped around him and walked slowly through the shin-high weeds. A sheet had been placed over the body. He didn’t bother to ask if the ME had been called; this report wouldn’t be any different from the others.

  Scully brushed by him and knelt beside the sheet. He stood behind her, holding his breath as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, pinched a corner, and pulled it back.

  Mulder looked away.

  Scully braced herself on the ground with one hand, and whispered something he couldn’t catch. He saw a shudder work its way down her back before she asked if someone had a camera. A deputy appeared at her side, and she directed the lens as she pulled the sheet farther back.

  The mutilation here wasn’t as complete as the others. There were areas where the skin was raw but still intact, and areas where a gleam of white showed through liquid red. Her face, however, was completely gone, as was most of her hair.

  This had not been a swift dying.

  While the sheriff barked and grumbled at his men, Mulder began a slow walk around the yard, until he realized that the color near and on the ground was actually bits of flesh. So were the splotches on the wall near an outside spigot. At the foundation just below it, he found the gun, took a pen from his pocket and picked it up through the trigger guard. Two shots, maybe three, the neighbor had said.

  At what?

  “Scully.”

  She looked up, a little pale but recovered.

  He jerked his head to tell her he would be inside when she was finished, then opened the kitchen door and went in.

  It was still hot, no moving air, and no sign that she intended to return from wherever it was she’d been heading. The drawers in the tiny bedroom dresser were empty; there were a few cartons in the spare room, which looked like those he’d seen in the Cherokee outside. Nothing in the medicine cabinet. Papers and some ledgers in the desk; bills paid and unpaid, but no letters.