WINDWALKER (THE PROPHECY SERIES) (17 page)

****

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.

Layla was grateful for the sunglasses, but she wouldn’t look back. Her focus had to be on where they were going, not where they’d been.

But for the People, the expressions on their faces said it all. They were not only leaving behind everything they knew, but people they would never see again. Their spirits were nearly broken and there was nothing she could say to make it better.

They drove for four hours without stopping, and when she finally stopped, it was for fifteen minutes only. Layla dropped the kickstand and squatted down behind the bike without shame. It was a bodily function that must be obeyed. When she stood, she drank another mouthful of water, tore off another piece of the meat the old man had given her, and went to find her grandfather.

He looked old. It startled her. She’d never really seen that before, and then realized she was seeing sadness, more than age.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am okay,” George said.

She handed him a piece of meat and bread, and moved back to the bike, chewing as she went. She washed it down with another quick drink, packed the bottle, and threw her leg over the bike. People climbed hastily back in their vehicles, anxious not to be left behind. When she put the bike in gear and rode off, they eased back into line behind her.

Do not stop for dark.

Layla frowned.
It will be more dangerous.

No. The danger is if you do.

She accelerated, and so did the others. The dust cloud rose until the only car any driver could see was the one directly in front. Then cars began dropping out of line from overheating or flat tires. Some ran out of gas. Some just quit.

The tribal police kept moving people from one vehicle to another – even discarding personal belongings to make room for live bodies; telling them to keep only the tools and the knives.

The second time they stopped was just before dark, and she knew they were all expecting to make camp. But when she got back on the bike and started it up, they reacted in kind. They drove down into the canyon following the tourist trails, and then onto the more narrow trails the locals drove.

Because of the dark, they were moving slower, which lessened the dust, but now they only saw the red taillights of the cars in front of them.

The fireball was a big bloody moon.

The stars were gone.

The night was at half-light.

They drove in silence. Children had fallen asleep, but the others could not – too afraid of what was above them.

The elders rode in silence, thinking back to the stories of their ancestors, remembering how time and again they had been hunted down like animals and moved from their own lands, and wondering if the ancestors had been as scared as the marchers were now. Their ancestors’ world came to an end with the arrival of the white man, and now the world was truly coming to an end, and as before, the white man was on their trail.

****

Layla was so tired she felt drunk. She ate a little more of the chicken and bread as she rode, then drank water, thinking if she fed her body it might revive it, but it only made it worse. It was like wanting to sleep after a big family dinner.

She screamed just to hear something beside the rumble of engines, knowing no one would hear it but her, then began reciting some of the stories she used to read to her students, but it made her sad because that life was gone.

When she started to cry it didn’t matter, because there was no one ahead of her to see the tears. And when she began talking to the Windwalker, it was because he also knew her pain.

She cried aloud, angry that she was facing this alone.

“I ache for the sound of your voice.”

I said that you would love me.

“You should have just taught me how to kill and not bothered my heart.”

You chose me just as I chose you, long before you ever set foot in this life.

Tears were running down both cheeks, leaving tracks in the dust on her face. The pain in her chest was so strong that it felt like she was dying. She couldn’t stop sobbing.

“But you left me behind.”

You are a red feather warrior, Singing Bird. It is your path to walk. It is your time.

Physical and mental exhaustion was taking its toll.

“I don’t know how much farther I can keep moving.”

The Firewalker comes no matter how tired you are. When you begin hearing the drums, they will pull you, like a magnet. Then you must run.

The warning sent chills up Layla’s spine, wondering what unknown dangers they had yet to face.

Chapter Eleven

Daylight came before the sun came up, and with it a heat like they’d never endured. It was with shock that Layla realized it was Firewalker and not the sun that lit the earth. The only good thing about morning was realizing they had already passed through the Canyon del Muerto. She was farther along than she’d thought.

But as soon as the heat really set in, more cars began to quit - some due to heat, but more often from lack of fuel. They were losing cars faster than they could redistribute the people, and the roads were becoming impassable to anything but motorcycles or ATVs.

At that point, Layla was forced to stop again, and that’s when she began hearing drums, which exacerbated the need to hurry.

She dug a long sleeve shirt out of her pack and put it on, then tied the tail of it around her waist for some protection from the sun. As others began climbing out of their vehicles, they followed suit, putting on hats and sunglasses, changing t-shirts for those with long sleeves and changing shorts for long pants, knowing they would now be walking without shelter from the sun.

She began issuing orders.

“Everyone walks but the elders. Find people with motorcycles and ATVS, and load them up any way you can. Pass the message down and follow as soon as you can. Time is short.”

As she turned to walk away, she glanced down and saw that she was standing on scorpions. Two were trying to crawl up her pant legs and the others were writhing on the ground, dying from the excessive heat of the earth on which they moved.

“Oooh, dang it, I hate these things,” she muttered, and knocked them off, then stomped the others until they were dead.

“Watch where you walk!” she yelled. “We aren’t the only ones trying to find a place to hide.”

It was another addition to the horror of what they were facing, but there was nothing she could do. She looked around for Leland Benally’s truck, then ran to it and pulled her grandfather out. The gas was gone and there was steam coming out from under the hood. It had gone its last mile.

“Granddaughter, I hear drums,” George said.

“It’s the Old Ones, Grandfather. They are guiding us.

You will ride with me. Leland and his children will walk.”

George didn’t argue, which said a lot for his state of being, and even staggered a little as they moved back to her bike. She gave him a quick drink of water, handed him the last of her bread and then got him seated on the back of the bike as the drumbeat echoed in her ears.

“Chew and swallow, Grandfather. I need you to hold onto me with both hands.”

When his arms went around her waist, she started the engine, and they were once again, on the move. The line was less orderly with people on foot, but they moved as quickly as they could, while giving way for the transports carrying their elders.

As they rode, Layla was ever conscious of her grandfather’s health and safety. The heat had become a blast furnace. Her lips were cracked, and every time she licked them, she tasted blood. Everyone was suffering. There was no way around it.

The small ribbon of water that had run through the gorge was gone, evaporated from the all-consuming heat. The only water left was what they carried.

The groves of small trees that had been so green only a week or so earlier were completely devoid of leaves. And now that they were on foot, the odor of decomposing animals was more evident. The only sheep she saw now were bloated carcasses.