Storm of Locusts

Chapter 31

The drive is long and hot and entirely uneventful. It seems that beyond the horrors of Knifetown and the uncanniness of Twin Arrows, the Malpais is just an uninhabitable desert wasteland. Mile after mile of flat brown earth, characterized by stretches of land where there’s nothing at all, not even an obstinate tree to break the monotony. The Mercury hums along happily, glad to stretch her legs after years in that garage, no doubt. I drive, and everyone else sleeps, except Ben, who seems determined to sing the entire catalog of some pop music group I’ve never heard of.

“You really don’t know who Maroon 5 is?” she asks. “They’re, like, classic oldies.”

“Never heard of them.”

She huffs. “They were very popular right before the Big Water. My mom had their whole discography.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she reassures me. “You’re lucky I know all their songs and can sing them for you.”

“Lucky isn’t the word I’d choose.”

But she doesn’t catch my sarcasm, or ignores it, and I speed through the wastelands of the apocalypse with Ben’s version of some song about what lovers do ringing in my ears.

We make decent time, the roads not as bad as they were right outside of Lupton, but still almost impassable in places. Once we have to get out and clear what looks like intentional road debris. I stand guard, shotgun drawn while the others remove the rubble blocking our way. No one attacks us, but I can almost feel the eyes out there watching us.

Early afternoon finds us climbing the narrow roads around the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

“Have you ever seen it?” Rissa asks, sitting up in the passenger’s seat.

“The Grand Canyon? No, you?”

She nods. “A trip once with my family, when my dad was still alive.” She smiles with some memory. “It was the last trip we took together before California went.”

It had been a combination of fire, earth, and ultimately water that had taken the West Coast, the entire coast ravaged by wildfires, blackened and ruined. People had tried to flee but had been caught by a massive earthquake that sheared most of the Pacific Northwest straight off the continental shelf, and then the ocean had rushed in to finish the job. Millions gone in a series of days one hot November. By then the East Coast had been suffering through a record hurricane season and there was no help to be had. The federal government had long given up on helping anyone, the message clear that we were all on our own. And on our own, we would die.

I was fifteen then, living with my nalí. California might as well have been Saturn. But we did miss the television stations when they all went. The Internet. Later, we would miss more than that. Much more. But for a long time Dinétah was its own bubble. Only recently had we started to see some of the effects of the Big Water in our day-to-day lives. Less choice at the trading posts, but then we’d never had much choice to begin with. Fruit was always canned and in a syrup. Vegetables were limited to what we could grow in the small backyard plot my nalí tended. Strange that our isolation made the transition to a post Big Water world easier when before I’d only ever seen it as a punishment. But now I could see what a blessing it was.

We curve around the edge of a cliff and hit a wide-open mesa. The view is spectacular, and there, in the distance, is a place that can only be Page. It’s a city at the top of a hill, almost like some old medieval city from books. But Page is thoroughly modern. Certainly more than anything in Dinétah. Electrical lights recklessly illuminate everything, revealing every road and structure in stark detail. Page benefits from the massive hydroelectric power plants on its borders. Those plants are fueled by the Colorado River that thunders nearby. Most electricity back in Dinétah comes from gas-powered generators, since we don’t have a reservation-wide electrical grid anymore, if there had even been one to begin with. But here in Page, electricity flows like air, turning the city into twenty-four hours of continuous daylight. But the most shocking thing about the city is its color.

“It’s green!” Rissa says, and after hours surrounded by nothing alive, it’s like finding an emerald in a trash bin.

“Ben!” I call to the back seat. “Look at this.” Ben rouses herself from where she’s been napping against Aaron’s shoulder. She wipes drool from her cheek and leans forward over the front seat to look.

“Whoa!” she says sleepily. “Is that grass?”

“Acres of it,” Rissa says. “Damn. What do they do with it all?”

“Eat it?”

“I don’t think people eat grass,” I say. “At least, not when there’s other options.”

We come to a fork in the road, the one on the right leading up to the city and the one on the left trailing down to . . .

“What is that?” I ask, awed.

“Glen Canyon Dam,” Aaron says. “Glen Canyon Dam is the second-highest concrete-arch dam in the United States.” He continues, his voice taking on the cadence of a tour guide. “Second only to Hoover Dam. Glen Canyon is seven hundred and ten feet high, a mere sixteen feet shorter than its more famous cousin. Built in 1956, it is part of one of the most extensive and complex river resource developments in the world. The dam holds more than twenty-six million acre feet of water in Lake Powell, and it has sustained the drought-stricken southwest part of the United States since its inception. It is truly a marvel of human engineering.”

“Nice,” Ben murmurs.

“I still got it,” he says to her with a wink.

“That sign says Wahweap is on the other side of the dam,” I say, pointing with my lips to a green-and-white road sign that designates places and miles to those places. “Eleven miles that way. But how do we cross?”

“We cross over the top of the dam,” Aaron explains. “There’s a road.”

“The hell you say?” Rissa says. “Seven hundred feet in the air?”

“Seven hundred and ten,” Ben adds unhelpfully.

“It’s fine,” Aaron assures us. “People do it all the time. There’s even a visitors center if you want to stop.”

“We’re not tourists, Aaron.”

“Right. Sorry.”

We’re approaching a place where the road turns from a dusty asphalt to a dull light gray concrete. The top of the dam. There’s a gate that is used to block the entrance to the dam, but it’s open right now, a handful of people in uniforms milling about.

We pass the gate. A woman in a brown and green uniform waves to us as we pass. I instinctively check to see if she has any weapons, but she’s unarmed. “I don’t understand,” I say. “Is that a . . . ?”

“National Park Ranger,” Aaron offers. “They stayed on after the federal government collapsed. Called themselves the Alt-Rangers. Said they had a higher duty to the land than to the government. They still wear their uniforms. It’s sort of a calling.”

“They’re not even armed.”

“No one would touch them. They’re considered sacred.”

I keep my eyes forward as we enter the dam proper. Ben oohs and aahs, craning her neck to look over the edge. Aaron provides a running commentary of facts. Only Rissa looks as tense as I do. “Hate heights,” she says when I look over at her.

It doesn’t take long—maybe ten minutes—to cross the dam, and then we’re on the other side and winding along another dirt road, following the signs to Wahweap and Amangiri.

As we get closer to our destination, a pall settles heavy around us. Nerves, no doubt. Each of us is wrapped up in our own thoughts about what we expect from Amangiri, none of us actually knowing what will happen once we get there.

I can see Ben in the back seat, eyes out the window, no doubt looking at Lake Powell and thinking of another lake where she lost her uncle just a few days ago. It seems like weeks since we went up that mountainside and Hastiin died and Ben set her heart on revenge.

Aaron’s next to her, looking out the other side of the car and absently rubbing the scars on his face, likely thinking of the White Locust too. Only I’m not sure whether he wants Gideon dead, like his seatmate does, or if he has other plans for his long-lost brother.

And then there’s Rissa. I know we had a moment and that she says we’re friends now. What I don’t know is exactly what that means, and if our newfound friendship was weighed against whatever she has with Aaron, would it come out on top or come out wanting? If Aaron flips on us, will Rissa have my back? Ben’s back? Or will she feel some kind of loyalty to Aaron? She said she wouldn’t, but I don’t know her well enough to know if she’s lying. Or if she’s telling the truth but likely to change her mind when the shit hits the fan.

The molted red and white cliffs of Lake Powell lead us down toward the water. Aaron starts drumming his fingers against the back of the seat. Rissa turns halfway around to lay a hand across his. He looks at her, surprised, and she gives him a smile. Wends her fingers through his. He smiles back. Ben begins singing softly to herself, a song I recognize, which Hastiin used to hum. Some tune he learned on the front lines of the Energy Wars. Something sad, a mourning song for warriors.

And I wonder, not for first time, what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.