Darkwind: Ancient Enemy 2 (33 page)

Stella looked out her passenger window down at the ground which was lit up from the truck’s headlights revealing a living carpet of snakes, spiders, scorpions, desert rats, and a vast assortment of insects.

“Blackhorn’s not going to wait there forever!” Cole said. “If we don’t do something soon his truck is going to be covered in those spiders and scorpions. He’ll have to leave.”

David jumped over the back of the front seat, crawling into the front.

“Out the driver’s side,” Cole told David as he scooted over to the middle and let David crawl into the driver’s seat on the other side of him. “That’s the shortest way to the passenger side of Blackhorn’s truck.”

Stella didn’t object this time; she knew David and Cole were right even though she didn’t like the thought of David going out there first.

“You can do this,” Cole told David as he opened up the driver’s door. Their truck had already stalled and the headlights were out. The keys hung uselessly in the ignition.

David didn’t answer Cole. He didn’t turn around to look at either one of them. He took a deep breath and stuck his foot out into the space, lowering it down towards the dirt.

The critters scurried away from his foot, crawling back into the darkness like David’s foot was a magnet repelling them.

“They’re backing away,” Cole said. He glanced back at Stella with an insane smile of disbelief on his face. “He’s making them back away!”

David stepped down onto the dirt beside the truck. The spiders and snakes crawled back into the darkness, keeping ten to twelve feet away like there was an invisible barrier that they were unwilling to cross.

“Come on,” David said to Cole and Stella without looking at them.

Cole got out of the truck right behind David, and Stella got out behind him. She stood there huddled together with Cole and David.

“We all walk slowly towards the truck,” Cole said. “We stay together.”

They walked slowly and Stella watched the hordes of animals back away even farther into the darkness.

The spiders and scorpions were already falling off of Joe Blackhorn’s truck and dropping to the dirt and then scurrying away.

They were going to make it, Stella thought as they inched closer to the waiting pickup truck.

A coyote howled from the darkness. Then another one. These howls seemed angry. Snakes hissed all around them and their rattles buzzed in the cold night air.

“Almost there,” Cole said.

Stella kept her hands on Cole’s back just like she’d done when they’d been on the snowmobile. And David was in between them just like on the snowmobile, but he was still enough protection to keep the animals driven back.

They got to the passenger door. Cole opened it. “You first, Stella,” he said.

She clamored inside the truck into the back seat; Blackhorn’s pickup had a king cab and a back seat like the pickup they’d just been in, only this one didn’t have all the clutter that the other one did.

“You next, kiddo,” Cole told David.

David climbed up into the truck.

Cole looked back at the sea of animals all around him and as soon as David was inside the truck the snakes, spiders, and scorpions shot out of the darkness for him. Coyotes bolted out of the blackness, snarling, eyes practically glowing with fury.

“Cole!” Stella yelled. “Get inside!”

Cole just got inside and slammed the door shut before three coyotes thumped into the passenger door. Joe Blackhorn shifted into reverse and stomped his foot down on the gas pedal without even looking behind them.

The back tires spun for a moment in the rutted dirt, but they grabbed quickly. The truck bumped and creaked as it picked up speed, backing up over animals. They could hear the thumps and crunches as it ran over snakes, insects, spiders, and other small animals that hadn’t gotten out of the way in time.

Joe Blackhorn spun the steering wheel around in his wrinkled hands like an expert racecar driver. They all held on while the truck spun around to head back the way it had come from.

Stella looked out the rear window of the truck. She expected to see the bed of the truck awash with spiders and scorpions, but there wasn’t a single creature there. All of the desert animals stood in a line in the darkness, all of them watching them drive away.

She turned back around and looked at the front of the truck. David sat in between Cole and the old Navajo man who wore a flannel shirt and a red bandana over his long gray hair that he had tied back in a long braid. His skin was wrinkled and dark, but he looked trim and healthy for an old man.

He turned and looked down at David for a moment before looking back out the windshield. “It’s really you,” he said in a low voice. “It’s like looking at a ghost.”

Joe Blackhorn’s property

“W
hat do you mean by that?” Stella asked. “What do you mean, it’s like looking at a ghost?”

The old Navajo turned around in the driver’s seat and looked at Stella who was leaning forward from the back seat. He gave her a humorless smile. “All in good time. I’m Joe Blackhorn.”

I figured that, she almost said, but stopped herself. This man had just saved their lives. Perhaps she, Cole, and David could’ve walked all the way to Joe Blackhorn’s house in a tight group with all of the snakes, spiders, and other animals following them, but it would’ve only been a matter of time before the animals got to one of them.

“Stella Weaver,” she finally said and offered him a hand.

“Forgive me if I don’t shake,” he told her. “This road … I need to keep both my hands on the wheel.”

“Please do,” Cole said. He nodded at Joe Blackhorn and smiled. “I’m Cole. And this is David.”

“David,” Joe Blackhorn said. “Even the name’s the same.”

“What do you mean by that?” Stella demanded.

“I will tell you everything soon,” he said as he drove. He didn’t seem particularly worried about the horde of animals they’d left behind nor traumatized by what he’d just witnessed … almost like he’d been expecting something like it.

“Did Billy Nez tell you about us, Mr. Blackhorn?” Stella asked, trying a different line of questioning.

“Yes,” he answered. “And please, just call me Joe.”

“Joe,” she said.

“Billy told me that you were looking for help. He told me a little about what had happened at a dig site and to …” he hesitated a moment like he wasn’t sure if he should go on. “And what happened to the boy’s parents,” he said in a lower voice.

“You’re going to help us?” Cole asked.

Joe drove for a moment, his truck bouncing around on the rutted road. He drove a lot faster than Cole had dared to drive on this rough road, but he seemed to know where all of the worst bumps and dips were and he navigated around them almost with a sixth sense. “Let’s get you back to the house,” was all he said.

• • •

Twenty minutes later they drove down a steep decline and there below, tucked neatly in a narrow valley, was Joe Blackhorn’s home. The headlights from the truck splashed across several structures and the foothills of the ragged mountains rose up sharply right behind the property like a wall of rock in the darkness. Stands of cottonwoods and junipers flanked the structures on both sides, boxing them in.

Even if the headlights hadn’t spotlighted the buildings, the full moon and the cold cloudless night sky of stars would’ve been enough light to at least make out what was down there: four main structures, and only one had lights on inside—a singlewide mobile home that looked like it was new back in 1975. A large shed sat a few yards from the end of the trailer. Another building, what looked like it could’ve been a horse or cow stable, was set far off from the trailer and it had a large corral beside it that was fenced in with a myriad of building materials including wooden posts, wire mesh, pieces of chain-link fencing. In between the horse barn and corral was an old hogan closer to the foothills, shrouded by trees and shrubs.

Stella recognized the hogan, a traditional building of the Navajo, but this building looked (and felt) abandoned to her, like Joe Blackhorn had left that structure alone for quite some time now.

There was some debris stacked up beside the shed and near the back of the trailer: wood planks, wire mesh, pieces of metal, a few old truck rims, fencing supplies.

A squat wooden structure with a mishmash of plastic and glass panels in it that made it look like some kind of greenhouse stood between the end of the trailer and the horse stables. A metal and wood windmill tower stood behind the trailer about fifteen feet away and the metal blades turned slowly and creaked in the cold air.

There were three old vehicles parked near the nose of the trailer. One of the vehicles, a pickup truck from the 1950’s, was just a rusted hulk sitting on rotting tires. There was another pickup truck that looked very similar to the one they were in. It looked like it could still be drivable, but maybe it was reserved for parts. Parked near the truck was a 1980 AMC Concord, the paint far past faded now. It had been a while since Stella had seen one of those cars.

“Here we are,” Joe said as he parked right beside the other pickup truck and shut off the engine and the headlights.

“Is it … safe?” Cole asked.

Joe looked at his property out through the windshield and then he looked out through the driver’s window. He looked back at Cole, and then down at David in between them like he was waiting for David’s judgement on this matter.

David just nodded.

“I think it’s going to stay away for a while,” Joe said. “But it won’t stay away for long.”

“So you know what that thing is … the Ancient Enemy?” Cole asked.

“Is that what you call it?” Joe wondered.

“I’ve heard it called the Darkwind,” Stella said from the back seat.

“It’s had many names through the years,” Joe said as he opened his driver’s door and got out.

Cole, David, and Stella got out through the passenger door, all of them looking around, trying to spot any movement in the dark, all of them traumatized by what they had just been through.

A barking startled them and a dark German Shepard mix ran up to them, yapping at them and wagging its tail.

“He’s harmless,” Joe said and then he spoke harshly to the dog in Navajo. The dog came over hesitantly towards Cole, Stella, and David, sniffing at the air, then the dog shadowed Joe as he walked to the steps that led up to the aluminum door that was the front door of his trailer.

Not a particularly sturdy-looking door, Stella thought.

Joe opened the door and the dog rushed inside. He held the door open for Stella. She went in first, followed by David and then Cole.

Stella wasn’t ready for what she saw inside Joe’s trailer. She had expected the messiness of an old man’s bachelor pad, or maybe the traditional décor of many of the Navajo that she’d known over the years. And there was a mixture of those two things; plenty of clutter and mess, and plenty of Navajo woven baskets, pottery, and blankets. But the bookcases that filled the corners and wall space in the living room surprised her. The shelves were crammed with science books. There were also pieces of science equipment on the shelves in front of the books. The home was neat and orderly, but a cluttered mix of Navajo culture and modern science.

The black German Shepard rushed right up to David, pawing at him to be petted, his tail wagging.

Joe spoke sharply to the dog in Navajo, and the German Shepard sat back down, but he stared up at David with big brown eyes, panting. “I told him to quit pawing at you,” Joe told David.

“He listens to you?” David asked, smiling.

“Yes,” Joe said, smiling back at David. “I’ve taught him all kinds of tricks.”

“Can I pet him?” David asked.

Joe seemed to think this over for a moment, but then he smiled. “Only if you want a friend for life.”

“I do,” David said and giggled. He dropped down to his knees and petted the dog.

“He really likes you,” Stella said to David.

“What’s his name?” David asked Joe.

“I call him
Łizhini.
”

“How do you have electricity way out here?” Cole asked Joe. “I didn’t hear a generator running?”

“I have a windmill generator in back,” Joe answered. “I also have some solar panels on the roof I bought a few years back. And there’s a gas-powered generator in the shed in case of an emergency, but the solar panels do a good job of storing up the electricity throughout the day. I also have a well for water with an electric and hand-cranked pump. I have a greenhouse out there and a garden for food. Two horses and a few goats are in the barn way out there and there are a few chickens that run around here. Totally off the grid, as they say. I still go into town about every month or so for basic supplies like gasoline, flour, sugar, any building supplies I might need.”

David stood back up but the dog pawed at him again.

Joe looked at David. “You thirsty?”

Stella thought about all of the drinks and food they’d had to leave behind in their stolen pickup truck. At least they still had their guns and the cell phone on them, not that the cell phone was any use way out here in the middle of nowhere.

“Yes, sir,” David answered.

“I’ve got some tea made. I can put some sugar in it for you. Would you like that?”

David nodded. He followed Joe into the kitchen and watched him prepare the tea. The dog followed David and sat down near him, his tail thumping on the linoleum floor.

Cole looked at the flimsy front door like he was expecting something to burst through at any moment.

Stella knew how he felt. Joe Blackhorn seemed awful relaxed after the display of power by the Ancient Enemy that they’d just seen out there. She slipped off her coat and laid it down on the arm of the sofa, folded over gently. Cole took off his gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his coat and then hung his coat up on a coatrack that looked like it had been constructed from deer antlers.

Stella walked from the couch over to one of the bookshelves near the TV and perused the titles. There were books on physics, astronomy, biology, business, and many books on ancient civilizations and Native American tribes. Stella had read many of the books on Native Americans and ancient cultures. There was also a fair mix of fiction among the books, many of them dog-eared paperbacks: mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and even some horror.