Nick couldn't help himself; he grabbed the man's shoulder harshly. "Damnit, she isn't coming back, Dugan. Annie isn't coming back, and she's not going to help." He felt the shoulder stiffen, and snatched his hand away. "If we're going to make it through this, we have to see that Leon is…"
He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
All he could do was wait for Velador to make up his mind. As he stood, the old man began a low murmuring, and Nick walked away.
He hadn't gone ten paces when the old man said, "Nick," just loud enough to hear.
He turned to face Dugan's back, and the right hand raised, finger pointing to the sky.
"The FBI."
"What about them?"
"They must be stopped."
The breeze blew. The sand stirred.
Imagine, Mulder said, a group of men, extremely devout men, confined for so long in a single room. The kiva. Imagine, as he had already mentioned to Scully, the energy they must create and radiate as they perform the rituals required of their faith. Suppose, then, there are moments during that time when the energy can no longer be confined, but its excess escapes through the hole in the ceiling. It can dissipate. Maybe someone nearby feels a little discomfort, but nothing more. They might blame it on the wind.
But suppose, just suppose, it doesn't scatter. Suppose it gathers instead. Suppose it concentrates.
Suppose the earliest Konochine knew this. They would also know that such a concentration would be potentially dangerous. So they come to the valley within the Wall from wherever they had been, and make it their home. It’s isolated, protected by both the hills and the mountains, and nobody— not the other tribes, not the Spanish, not the whites — bothers them for very long.
But the energy is the important thing.
What happens to it?
Sangre Viento.
Blood Wind.
Nando making a spinning motion with his hand.
He called it a whirlwind.
Not a tornado dropping from a cloud; an extraordinary dust devil, rising from the ground.
It spins alone in the desert, and when the energy is used, it falls apart, just like disturbing the plane of an ordinary dust devil will cause it to collapse. It's reasonable to suppose, then, that once in a while an animal gets caught in it, and because it spins at such high speeds, far faster than an ordinary dervish, and because It’s made up of gritty, sandy earth, leaves, twigs, whatever else is on the ground…
Imagine, he said.
Imagine the power.
TWENTY
He stared at the passing desert, elbow on the armrest, one hand curled lightly across his chin. Now that he had said it aloud, heard his voice, he knew he was right. There was no baroque device a murderer could cart around with him, and there was no group of whip-wielding maniacs. Sangre Viento was all there was. And one thing more.
"Mulder," Scully said in that voice he had heard so many times before, "assuming, and only assuming, for the moment that you're right-"
Sheriff Sparrow grumbled a few words, most of which were "bullshit."
Mulder couldn't miss the tone of disappointment and disbelief.
" — what you're talking about is. " She faltered. "Is a form of undirected psychic, for want of a better word, energy. Assuming it's true," she added hastily. "But how does that random activity explain four people dying? It seems to me that where and when they died indicates something else entirely."
"Premeditation” he said, still watching the desert.
"Exactly."
"Oh, sweet Jesus," Sparrow snapped. "Are you telling me there's somebody who can aim this thing? Assuming," he said sarcastically, "you're right" He yanked the cruiser so hard off the interstate, Mulder nearly fell over. "For God's sake, gimme a break."
Unfortunately, Mulder couldn't see any other answer. What he could see, however, was a couple of names who might be interested in such control. The question was, why would they feel the need to kill?
"I mean," the sheriff continued, working himself into a self-righteous rage, "how can a couple of intelligent people like you believe in such crap? Bunch of old Indians sitting around a campfire, shooting cosmic something-or-other at each other? You been nibbling at some peyote or what?" He slapped the steering wheel hard.
"Scully, you're a doctor, for God's sake. You gonna tell me you actually go along with this shit?"
Mulder held his breath.
"Sheriff” she answered in her most official, neutral voice, "I have never known Mulder to be so far off-base that I would dismiss everything he says out of hand."
"Ah… crap."
Thank you, Scully, Mulder thought with a brief smile, I'd rather have a resounding "absolutely and how dare you," but that'll do in a pinch.
On the other hand, the day that "absolutely and how dare you" actually came, it would probably kill him with amazement.
They passed the Double-H, and he wondered if any of this had touched Annie. He wondered what she had heard on the wind. Whatever it was, he didn't believe for a second she was in any way involved.
Suddenly the sheriff braked hard, and Mulder shot his hand out to brace himself against the seatback. In the road ahead, a pickup had been parked across the lane. Nick Lanaya lounged against the bed, arms folded across his chest.
"Stupid bastard," the sheriff muttered. "Has everyone gone nuts on me today?"
They climbed out slowly, Mulder moving around the car to join Scully. As he did, he looked up the boulder-strewn slope on his right and saw a figure sitting near the top, featureless and black against the sky.
"Dugan Velador," Lanaya said, pushing away from the truck. "He's like a priest. One of the six." A tolerant chuckle and a gesture to the hill. "He likes it up there. He says it helps him think."
"But it’s so hot," Scully said, astonished. "How does he survive?"
"He's Konochine, Agent Scully. He can pretty much survive anything." He cleared his throat. "So what’s up? I got Chuck's message. What can I do for you?"
The sheriff hitched his belt. "Nick, you ain't gonna—"
"We need to see the reservation, Mr. Lanaya," Mulder said, further cutting the sheriff off by standing half in front of him. "There are some questions we have to ask of the people in charge."
"The Council?"
"Are they the priests?" Scully asked.
Lanaya shrugged. "Mostly, yes. But I don't think they'll talk to you."
Mulder smiled. "That's why you're here. To convince them that cooperation in a murder investigation would be the right thing to do. Maybe save some lives."
Lanaya scuffed the ground with the toe of a boot. "Well, to be honest, Agent Mulder, I'm kind of beat today." A sour look at the sheriff. "I spent most of the morning with a police accountant, going over Donna's ledgers and bank account. It seems she was cheating me more than just a little."
"So I gathered."
"Luckily, most of the money is recoverable, so I won't lose much. But it's the shock, you know what I mean? A lot of years I trusted her, and now I'll never know why she did it."
"Your people trusted her, too” Scully said.
"No." He squinted at the hillside. "No, they trusted me. Like I said, I've got a hell of a lot of damage control ahead of me here. And you coming in like this. it's only going to make things worse."
Mulder walked over to the truck. "You have air conditioning, right?"
Puzzled, Lanaya nodded.
"Good." He opened the passenger door and beckoned to Scully. "Let's go." Expressionless, Scully climbed in first. "We have a job to do. Right, sheriff?"
All Sparrow could do was nod curtly, and Lanaya shrugged an it's your funeral before getting in behind the wheel. But his face was hard, and Mulder saw his fingers tremble as they turned the key to fire the engine. Anger, or nerves.