Once, he had sensed a presence following him on the trail. A man on a horse. Perhaps a ghost, perhaps not. For two full days. Hawk and the horseman travelled the same course, just out of each other's sight, but then, one evening, the presence was gone. Hawk almost missed the stranger. They had been a match, an Indian and a cowboy. There had been no Darkness in the stranger, and Hawk recalled that one of the spirit warriors who would stand with the One-Eyed White Girl in the last battle was called the Man Who Rides Alone.
Otherwise, it was an uneventful trek. Hawk slept with his guards up, and was not much bothered by spirits. Of course, there was great agitation in the spirit world as the Last Days drew nearer. He half-expected to be set upon by demons—the God of the Razor, Tartu or Misquamacus—but his part in the developing story was ignored. Once, a wendigo, straying far from its Northern haunts, brushed by riding a freak wind, but it took no interest in the lone Indian.
Everywhere he went, he felt traces of the One-Eyed White Girl. She was fighting her battles elsewhere, hauling herself out of the rut of common humanity to the point when she would be ready to accept the training the medicine man of the line of Armijah was destined to give her.
He arrived at Santa de Nogueira three days before the spirit warrior. He passed the time Dreamwalking. He travelled, sensing the works of the Dark Ones everywhere. Wars raged, famines spread, diseases ran unchecked. Death enveloped the world, seeping from boardrooms to battlefields. Those who could commit suicide, directly or indirectly, were doing so; in this War, suicide was the only way to resist the call-up. Everyone alive was being influenced, Hawk knew. Everyone would have to take sides. He was very much afraid that the side he had chosen would be outnumbered forty to one by the minions of Darkness.
Then, at nightfall, she came out of the desert in a sleek automobile with bloody upholstery. He saw her dust devil from a long way away, and knew that she had been led here by her own dreams, by the pull of the moon. Her picture was titled the Moon and the Crocodile. She would be confused, but he would have to deal with that.
The machine slid to a halt inside the courtyard, and Hawk stepped out of the shadows. The car's door raised, and the One-Eyed White Girl emerged. Her hair was long and black as a raven's feather, untied so one wing partially covered her patch-covered missing eye. She wore loose black pyjamas, moccasins and a black brassiere. She wasn't tall, she wasn't obviously muscled, and she was young, a girl not a woman.
She didn't look like a great warrior, but Hawk sensed her strength immediately. He knew some of her past, and he would learn more. Her eyepatch apart, she bore no obvious scars, but she had fought many battles, vanquished many foes. He opened his mouth, and sang the song of the One-Eyed White Girl, the song his father had taught him.
Her hand went to the holstered gun slung on her thigh. She had polished black fingernails, a single touch of ornamentation.
He spread his empty hands to show her he meant no harm. His song continued, echoing through the monastery as once the chanting of the monks must have done. The devout were long gone, but the Sacred Purpose remained.
The girl's hand relaxed, and fell away from her weapon. The moon rose, and her pale face glowed.
II
This is ZeeBeeCee, The Station That's Got It All, bringing you What You Want twenty-four hours a day, sponsored by GenTech, the bioproducts division that really cares…
And now, as part of our public service program, we hand you over live to Lynne Cramer and Brunt Hardacre in our Beverly Hills Studios…
"Hello, America. It's June 16th, 1997, and it's Lynne again, welcoming you to SnitchWatch USA, the program in which you, the viewer at home, can help fight crime for cash money and prizes by interfacing with our datanet on your home peecee. Remember, GenTech is offering goods or the credit up to the value of ten million dollars for any and all information leading to the arrest of ever-so-desperate felons. Now, over to our Op from the Top, Brunt Hardacre…"
"Thank you, Lynne. Last week, you'll remember, we put a bounty out on the head of that scuzzbo, Jimmie Joe Jackson, South-Western Sector Venerated Warthog of the Maniax. Well, we've sorted through the heads that were sent in to the studio, and we're real pleased to report that Jackson's was indeed among them. He's positively been identified by EX. Wicking of the T-H-R agency and by Colonel Younger of the United States Cavalry, and those bio-implanted replacement lungs are winging their way to a viewer in Phoenix who has asked us, for reasons we fully understand, not to reveal his name. Thank you, public-spirited do-gooder, whoever you are, and good luck with your tar-free windsacks…"
"Say, Brunt, what do you think? Would someone with terminal cancer have a better life expectancy than someone who was publicly known to have ratted on the Maniax?"
"That's a good question, Lynne. Of course, we'll never know the answer because ZeeBeeCee absolutely guarantees the confidentiality of all our informants. Not one has ever fallen victim to a gangland-style hit after coming forward with solid information. Some other stations don't have such good security, you know, and their crime-fighting shows rack up pretty heavy casualties. But with ZeeBeeCee, you can snitch in safety…"
"Phew! Say, I sure feel safer now that Jimmie Joe Jackson is out of business, Brunt."
"There are a lot of people who feel like that, Lynne."
"I'm sure there are. Tell me, who's the scumbag for today?"
"Well Lynne, today we're giving equal time to the ladies and throwing the spotlight on one of America's Most Wanted Femme Criminals, Ms Jessamyn Amanda Bonney, sometimes known under the aliases of Jazzbeaux or Minnie Molotov. Guns and Killing magazine currently rate her as the sixth most dangerous solo outlaw in the Americas, and she is the highest-ranked woman on the list, coming in at thirty-seven places above the Antarctic esperado Ice Kold Katie. Formerly affiliated to the Psychopomps gangcult, her chapter was broken up in 1995 during a pitched battle with the Road Cavalry in Spanish Fork, Deseret. Jessamyn is now believed to be working alone."
"What kind of a girl gets to the Most Wanted list, Brunt?"
"Jessamyn was born in 1978 in the Denver NoGo, Lynne. She got off to a bad start on the streets as the child of Bruno Bonney, convicted pimp, pusher, armed robber and bilko artist. ZeeBeeCee has gained a court order allowing access to Jessamyn Bonney's juvenile records, stored in the central infonet of the Bruyce-Hoare Agency, and we can exclusively reveal for the first time on national television that evidence which has come to light since her 1992 parricide hearing has suggested that she was indeed guilty of the murder of her father, a crime for which she was acquitted in court on the testimony of one Andrew Jean, since deceased, a gangcult associate and known perjurer."
"Well, that's just a thrilling revelation. Brunt."
"You said it, kiddo. After knocking off her old man, Jessamyn rose through the ranks in the Psychopomps, and racked up quite a score. Then, after Spanish Fork, our information gets a bit shaky. We have uncovered evidence that suggests she was working in league with famed mass murderer Herman Katz in the Spanish Fork area…"
"That's the guy who stuffed his mother?"
"You got it, Lynne. Now, sources close to the receivers of the H-M Agency of Los Angeles suggest that it has been conclusively proved that she was involved in the massacre at Dead Rat, Arizona, last year, during which a peaceful force of process-servers were murdered by members of the Maniax gangcult, who then razed the community to the ground. It will be remembered that popular Los Angelino Op Bronson Manolo lost his life in that engagement."