Trail of Lightning

Chapter 10

“You got anything?” I ask as I enter the library.

Kai’s camped out at one of those long wooden tables up front. He has a dozen discs spread out around him, little white labels stuck to each, and he’s scribbling notes on the edges of a page torn from a magazine. A reedy woman’s voice wafts up from the speaker of a CD player, talking Navajo mostly, with a few random English phrases thrown in. I drop into a nearby chair and lean in to listen.

“I know this story,” I say.

Kai looks up from his notes. I’m surprised too. But the story is familiar, one I’ve heard before. A story about Coyote and the Black God Haashch’ééshzhiní. Once the two tricksters were best of friends and were tasked with setting the stars in their place in the sky. Haashch’ééshzhiní, the Keeper of the Fire, had a plan for how the stars should be set. It was methodical. Ordered. But Coyote grew bored with his plan and tossed the stars into the sky haphazardly with an impetuous flip of a blanket.

The woman’s voice slows to a slur just as Coyote is reaching for the blanket, and a little red light on the player blinks furiously at us. Kai hits the stop button.

“Batteries,” he says with a shake of his head. “I’m surprised we got that much juice out of the thing. It’s been sitting here how many years?”

“No charger?”

“It wasn’t in the box. And even if it was, no electricity.”

I worry the inside of my cheek, thinking. “That story mean anything to you?”

“Did you catch that part about fire?”

“Haashch’ééshzhiní. He gave fire to the five-fingereds. Set the stars ablaze.”

“Just a thought, but . . .” He trails off, taps the nub of the pencil he’s holding against the table.

“A thought?” I prompt him.

“I don’t know. Something about that fire. Maybe it’s related. Maybe it’s not. But I’d like to listen to the rest of these.” He runs a hand across the discs on the table. “See if something else comes up.”

I hesitate, drawing in a breath, and he looks over, expectant. “My trailer’s not far from here,” I tell him. “Just through the pass. Closer than Tah’s by a couple of hours. Why don’t we head there? I probably have batteries somewhere, and if I don’t, we can go back to Tse Bonito in the morning. Surely someone in the market is selling a plug that’ll fit that thing.”

He nods. “Sounds like a plan, Mags.”

“Sorry Crownpoint was a loss.”

“Not a total loss. We know something about an object that can give the stars life. And if they can give stars life, maybe they’re related to what we’re looking for. It could be a clue. You find anything?”

“Nope,” I say, not ready to explain my theory about Neizghání yet.

“Nothing more on your hunch about those burn marks?”

For a minute I think he must know I’m holding something back, but his face is set in blank friendliness, nothing suspicious. “No.”

“Well, we still may find some good info on the CDs,” he says, dumping the CDs and their player into a tote bag emblazoned with the technical college’s logo.

“Nice bag,” I observe.

He lifts up the canvas tote, inspecting it. “Found a whole bunch of them over there behind the reference desk. You want one?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“I wonder if I should get one for my cheii.”

“Sure. We went to Crownpoint, saw a bunch of dead people, learned about a firestarter, and all I got was this lousy tote bag.”

He laughs. Nobody ever laughs at my dumb jokes, and it’s enough to make me flush, pleased. He starts toward the exit, looping the tote bag handles over his shoulder. I follow. Watch as he gives one last mournful look at the abandoned library and pushes open the double doors.

He freezes, halfway through. Sucks in a startled breath, his knuckles turning white as he grips the door.

“What is it?” I ask, instantly alert. I slip the shotgun from my shoulder holster and come up beside him, using the wall for cover. He still hasn’t moved and I drop to peek around the corner, but all I see is the wheelchair ramp, an empty parking lot, my truck.

“Kai?”

He turns toward me, face ashen. Whispers a word I can’t quite hear. I lean closer, so he says it again.

“Ghosts.”

“How many?” I ask, my voice terse.

“Dozens,” he says. “More. Blocking the path to the truck.”

“Okay,” I say, thinking. Trying to remember what Neizghání said about how to fight ch’įdii. Trying harder to forget the helplessness of the ghost sickness. Because if I think about it too much, I might lose my shit. Fighting flesh and blood is one thing, but fighting sickness, something that kills from the inside, that’s something I’m not so good at.

“Do you still have those shotgun shells I gave you?”

Kai slowly lets go of the door. Reaches into his pocket and pulls out two shells. His hand shakes. He takes a deep breath and it steadies. I have two shells in my gun and another four in my ammo belt. But eight shells should be enough to get us to the truck.

I pull the obsidian throwing knife from my moccasin wrap. Take the shells from Kai. I wedge the tip of my knife into the edge of a shell until it cracks. “Hands.” Kai holds out his hands and I pour the obsidian shot into his palm. The corn pollen puffs briefly and then settles on his skin. I repeat the process with my other shells until there’s an oversize mound of obsidian and pollen cupped carefully in his hands. I take half for myself.

“Okay,” I say. “We’re going to move toward the truck. I can’t see them, so you’re going to have to lead. I’ll follow, so keep a clear path. You need to move one, or they get too close, you toss some right at them. Pollen should ground them to the spot, and the obsidian should hurt them. Make them go away if we’re lucky.”

“If we’re not lucky?” he asks.

My voice is a little breathless and I realize that I’m geeked up, the adrenaline starting to course. Ready for a fight, even if it’s one I can’t quite see coming. “Either one of us gets too close, the ghost sickness is going to get us. So I suggest we get lucky quick.”

Kai blinks, and I notice the rich brown of his eyes has paled around the edges, the dark circle around his irises now a quicksilver. A shiver crawls across my shoulders that has nothing to do with the ch’įdii. But there’s nothing to be done about it right now. We need to get out of here. And Kai’s on my side, after all.

“Okay, you ready?” I ask him.

He nods. “I’ll do my best to make sure the ghosts don’t touch you.”

I push the door open and we go.

I may not be able to see the ch’įdii, but I feel them in my gut, like a rising sadness that makes me want to howl, to weep for everyone and everything I’ve ever lost. My nalí. My parents. Neizghání. Even a stuffed horse doll that I had when I was ten. The feelings come fast and furious, threatening to take me over. A sob rises in my throat, but I swallow it down before it escapes. Kai moans, a low sad sound, and I know he must feel them too, his own memories of loss. I shudder and force my feet forward.

Kai heads steadily for the truck, spreading the shot in a wide arc. I’m careful to keep in his footsteps, scattering the shot around and behind me. When he stops abruptly to throw a handful of obsidian at a blank space three feet in front of us, I yelp. He looks back. I nod and motion him forward. We keep going until we hit the passenger’s side door.

I throw open the door, ready to dust the inside with shot if I have to. “Nothing in the truck, right?” I ask Kai. But I know there’s not. I can’t feel them anymore, the crippling sorrow of moments ago lifted like it never was.

His brow scrunches up like I said something funny. “All clear,” he assures me. “They pretty much took off when I doused that first one.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” I say defensively as I climb over the seat and slide in behind the wheel. He gets in beside me, shrugging the tote bag off his shoulder, careful to keep the shot from slipping from his hand. I reach into my pocket and pull out one of the empty shells. He cups his hand and pours what’s left of his pile back in.

“Not so bad,” he says. “In fact”—a corner of his mouth quirks up—“that was kind of fun.”

I shudder. “Fun” is the last word I’d use for that feeling. I start the engine and don’t bother to comment.

“So I make a pretty good partner after all?” he says.

I pull the truck out of the parking lot and onto the road. Head west toward the mountains and out of Crownpoint. Kai’s good humor fades as we pass the deserted houses, the bodies along the road, the reality of what made those ch’įdii staring us in the face. The sensation of a deep, unrequited longing lingers over us even though we’re safe in the truck. Neizghání’s face rises unbidden from my memories, and I turn up the radio, hoping for a distraction. But the only song playing in the whole of Dinétah is Patsy Cline, and she’s falling to pieces.

Halfway through Narbona Pass, I turn to Kai. “What’s up with your eyes?”

He blinks, like he didn’t hear me. But I know he did. I can almost see him spinning an answer. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“When you said you saw those ch’įdii, before we walked out there, your eyes turned silver. Just like they did when we stopped for the coyote.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“The hell you don’t.”

He widens his eyes theatrically, turns that handsome face toward me. “Pretty sure my eyes are brown.” He’s right. They’re back to brown, hints of reddish gold streaking his ridiculously attractive but perfectly normal eyes. He gives me a reassuring smile. “It was probably just a trick of the light. Mags. I think I’d know if my eyes were silver.”

It’s possible. Sure, it’s possible. It’s probably more possible than Kai’s eyes changing colors, but he did see the ch’įdii when I couldn’t. I thought it was just something about his medicine training, but now I’m wondering, thinking it might be something bigger. Something I should know about. “You shouldn’t keep secrets from me, Kai. That’s not how partnerships work.”

He perks up. “So we’re partners?”

“I didn’t mean—”

A bolt of lightning streaks across the late afternoon sky, cutting me off midsentence. We watch as it strikes somewhere to the west. The direction we’re going. Thunder booms shortly after. We both blink in the afterburn.

“Whoa, that was pretty close,” Kai says.

I’d say within a dozen miles of us. I can’t stop myself from foolishly searching the sky, hoping to spot a storm cloud to tell me that rain is imminent and the lightning was a natural occurrence. But, of course, there’s nothing to see, certainly no rain, and my heart thuds with fear, thoughts of Kai’s eyes forgotten.

“Lightning out of a clear blue sky,” Kai says. “Weird.”

“Yeah, weird.” Although I know it’s anything but. Lightning without a cloud in sight means one thing.

Visitors.