The Dark Wind

junipers along the cliff. Too much distance, too little light, too short a moment for Chee to register whether the man looked familiar. He could see only that he was blond, and wore a blue-and-gray shirt. The Boss apparently had not followed orders to come alone; he'd brought along a bodyguard. Like Chee, the bodyguard intended to slip into the village unnoticed.

Chee waited; he wanted to give this man time to get well ahead. But when he thought of it, it didn't matter whether this fellow saw him or not. Out of uniform, in his off-day jeans and work shirt, Chee conceded that he would be seen by this white man as just another Hopi walking home from wherever he'd been. Chee conceded this reluctantly. To Chee, Navajos and Hopis, or Navajos and anyone else for that matter, looked no more alike than apples and oranges. It wasn't until Hosteen Nakai pointed out to him that after three years at the University of New Mexico, Chee still couldn't sort out Swedes from Englishmen, or Jews from Lebanese, that Chee was willing to admit that this 'all Indians look alike' business with white men was genuine, something to be added to his growing store of data about the Anglo-American culture.

Chee hurried again, not worrying about being seen. Like himself, the man who had slipped out of the car was keeping away from the road. And like Chee, he was skirting along the rim of the mesa. Chee kept him periodically in sight for a while, and then lost him as the twilight deepened. He didn't think it would matter. Sityatki was a small place—a cluster of no more than fifty residences crowded around two small plazas, each with two small kivas. It shouldn't be hard to find the blue Lincoln.

He reached the edge of the village a little earlier than he'd planned. The sun was well below the horizon now, but the clouds which had been building up all afternoon gave the dying light a sort of glum grayness. Far to the west, back over the Mogollon Rim and Grand Canyon country, the sky was black with storm. Chee stopped beside a plank outhouse, glanced at his watch, and decided to wait for a little more darkness. No breeze moved the air. It was motionless and, rarity of rarities in this climate, damp with a warm, smothering humidity. Maybe it would rain. Really rain—a soaking, drought-breaking deluge. Chee hoped it would, but he didn't expect it. Even when the storm is breaking, the desert dweller maintains his inbred skepticism about clouds. He finds it hard to believe in rain even when it's falling on him. He's seen too many showers evaporate between thunderclap and the parched earth.

There was thunder now, a distant boom, which echoed from somewhere back over Black Mesa. And when it died away, Chee heard a faint, rhythmic sound. Ceremonial drumming, he guessed, from the depth of one of the village kivas. It would be time to move.

A path from the outhouse led along the rim of the cliff, skirting past the outermost wall of the outermost residence, threading through a narrow gap between the uneven stones and open space. Chee took it. Far below, at the bottom of the wash, the darkness was almost total. Lights were on in the bia housing—rectangles of bright yellow—and the headlights of a vehicle were moving slowly down the road which followed the dry watercourse. Normally Chee had no particular trouble with heights. But now he felt an uneasy, shaky nervousness. He moved along the wall, turned into the walkway between two of the crowded buildings, and found himself looking out into the plaza.

No one was in sight. Neither was the blue Lincoln. An old Plymouth, a flatbed truck, and a half-dozen pickups were parked here and there beside buildings on the north and west sides of the plaza, and an old Ford with its rear wheels removed squatted unevenly just beside where Chee stood.

The black belly of the cloud beyond the village lit itself with internal lightning, flashed again, and then faded back into black. From the kiva to his left, Chee heard the sound of drumming again and muffled voices raised in rhythmic chanting. The cloud responded to the call with a bumping roll of thunder. Where could the Lincoln be?

Chee skirted the plaza, keeping close to the buildings and making himself as unobtrusive as possible, remembering what Dashee had told him of the layout of this village. He found the alley which led to the lower plaza, a dark tunnel between rough stone walls. Across the lower plaza, the blue Lincoln was parked.

The oldest part of the village surrounded this small open space, and much of it had been deserted generations ago. From where Chee stood in the blackness of the alley mouth, it appeared that only two of the houses might still be in use. The windows of one glowed with a dim yellow light and the other, two doorways down, was producing smoke from its stovepipe chimney. Otherwise there was no sign of life. The window frames had been removed from the house against which Chee leaned and part of its roof had fallen in. Chee peered into the dark interior and then stepped over the windowsill onto the packed-earth floor inside. As he did so, he heard a rattling sound. It approached, suddenly louder. Rattle. Rattle. Rattle. The sounds were spaced as if someone, walking slowly, shook a rattle with each step. The sound was in the alley which Chee had just left. And then Chee saw a shape move past the window he had just stepped through.

A booming rumble of thunder drowned out the sound. Under cover of the noise Chee moved cautiously to the front of the building, ducking under fallen roof beams. Through the hole where the front door had been, he could see the walking man slowly circling the little plaza. He wore a ceremonial kirtle, which came to about his knees. Rattles made of tortoise shells were tied just below his knees. On his head he wore a sort of helmet, dominated by two great horns, curved like the horns of a ram. In his hand he carried what looked like a staff. As Chee watched, the walker stopped.

He turned, and faced Chee.

'Haquimi?' The walker shouted the question directly toward him.

Chee froze, held his breath. The man couldn't possibly see him. There was still a residue of twilight in the plaza, but the darkness under this fallen roof was complete. The walker pivoted, with a flourish of his rattles, and faced a quarter turn away from Chee's hiding place. 'Haquimi?' he shouted again, and again he stood motionless, waiting for an answer that didn't come. Another quarter turn, and again the question was shouted. Chee relaxed. This would be part of the patrol Cowboy had told him about— members of the One Horn and Two Horn societies giving their kivas the ceremonial assurance that they were safe from intruders. They shout 'Who are you?' Cowboy had said, and of course nobody answers because nobody is supposed to be out except Masaw and certain of the kachinas, coming into the village over the spirit path. If there's a kachina coming, then he answers, 'I am I.'

The patrol was facing to Chee's left now. He shouted his question again. This time, instantly, it was answered. 'Pin u-u-u.' A hooting sound, more birdlike than human. It came from somewhere just off the little plaza, out of the darkness, and it made the hair bristle on Chee's neck. The voice of a kachina answering his human brother? Chee stared through the doorway, trying to place the sound. He heard the mutter of thunder and the cadenced rattles of the patrol, walking slowly away from the source of the response. A flare of lightning lit the plaza. It was empty.

Chee glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. The caller had said 9:00 p.m. for the transfer. Still almost an hour to wait. Why so long? West (or should he still be thinking of Ironfingers?) must have told the man in the blue Lincoln to arrive by twilight, before the road was closed. Must have told the man where to park, and to sit in his car and wait. But why so long? Why not get it over with? Lightning again—a great jagged bolt which struck somewhere back on Black Mesa. It lit the empty plaza with a brief white light, bright enough to show Chee that the man in the blue Lincoln was wearing a straw hat.

Chee was aware he was sweating. Unusual in desert country—especially unusual after dark, when