Downburst (21 page)

I nod through my headache. How high do the windwalkers go?

“The jet stream wouldn’t be of any help, anyway, since it’s going against us.”

Jet stream!
I remember learning about those: air currents that form near the tropopause, more than five miles above the Earth.
I guess that answers that question.
I try to imagine what it would be like to go so high, but my head feels too heavy to think about it.

“Are the coordinates for the
Wakenunat
in our Quils?” I ask.

“Yeah. We’ve got that and a GPS, but, like I said, most of the good stuff is locked.” He stands up. “We should keep going.”

We return to the air, and the rest of the day blends together. My stomach still leaps when I soar above the trees, but I lose all feeling in my legs. My mind goes numb as well. I keep the darkness at bay, but all I can hear or feel is the thrumming of the wind.

At last, I give in. Unable to focus my eyes on the Quil’s screen, I get Rye’s attention and desperately make the signal for
go low
as I drop to the ground, almost hitting a tree on my way down.

We eat the last of the food for dinner. It’s only four in the afternoon, but Rye agrees to let us stop for the night.

“We’ll need to go further tomorrow, so get some rest. I’ll take the first watch.”

“It’s my turn,” I mumble.

“You can hardly keep your eyes open. I’ll wake you when I need to switch.”

I don’t argue. I pull out the sleeping bag and fall asleep almost instantly.

I’ve fought off their faces all day, but in my dreams they find me. We’re windwalking. Lila. Charity. Jeremy. Even Aura. Lila laughs, her curls blowing freely behind her, while Jeremy grins at me and takes my hand. We fly through the clouds. The trees shrink to tiny specks as we ascend higher and higher, up to the stratosphere. My chest is buoyant. I could keep climbing forever.

I look at Jeremy, and he smiles at me. But as he turns his head, a black tendril snakes across his cheek. It divides into more strands, spreading across his face, swallowing his lips and nose, carving his face into a serpentine stamp, until only his pale blue eyes remain.

I scream and drop his hand. But as I turn to flee, I realize I’m surrounded by the other windwalkers, all of them devoured by the tattoos, all of them—Lila, Charity, Jeremy—pointing guns at my head.

I lose my bond with the wind, spiraling down and down and down, through miles of empty air. The trees grow large again, their pointy tops rising up to spear me. I keep screaming as I drop into their prickly arms, as I hit the ground with a splat.

Panting, I sit up and reach for the cool lining of the sleeping bag, feel for broken bones. I let my heart rate slow down. Take deep breaths.

It’s night now, and the full moon has an entourage of stars. I walk over to where Rye is sitting on a rock.

“I’ll watch,” I say.

He looks up, and I see only a dull gleam where his eyes should be. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yeah. Here’s the sleeping bag.”

“Thanks.” He takes the bag and moves to a spot on the ground.

Taking his place on the rock, I pull my hood over my head and wrap my arms around my body, scrunching my shoulders against the cold that’s slipping down my neck. Just like last night, the forest is alive with noise. The crickets and frogs compete for dominance, and the sky echoes with their monotonous clicks, punctuated every few moments by unearthly shrieks and whistles. I hug myself more tightly, try to listen around the metronomic insects, swivel my head every time there’s a new sound. The wind rattles the dry Aspen and Tamarack leaves. Somewhere in the dark, a Great Horned Owl challenges the night.
Who Who Who Whooooo Who?
I train my eyes on the trees, glad at least that the sky is clear, the moon bright.

Gradually, the noises work themselves into a discernible pattern, and I force my arms to relax. But as the wind brushes my cheeks, the ache from my dream returns, hollowing out my chest. I tip back my head and stare relentlessly at the sky until the moon and the stars melt into a milky blur.

The smell of cooking fish wakes me up. I rub my eyes and then the back of my head where it’s been resting against the rock, squint at the small fire, at Rye’s body crouched over it. I jump to my feet.

“I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Rye looks at me. His hair is wet. “Ah, you’re awake.” He turns back to the fire. “It’s a good thing we didn’t have any visitors last night.”

“I said I’m sorry.” The smoky aroma makes my stomach rumble. “Where did you get the fish?”

“The frozen section.”

Seriously? What’s his deal?
“How many times do you want me to apologize?”

“Oh, you don’t have to apologize. I understand you need your beauty sleep.”

I wheel around and march into the trees, forcing myself not to think about how much he sounded like …
Well, what does he want me to do, plead for forgiveness? It’s not like I did it on purpose. And he could have woken me—I would have helped with breakfast.
I grip the .38 in my pocket. I don’t need his stupid fish. I’ll get my own food.

When I’ve reached a small meadow a good distance from our camp, I clear my mind and focus on the swirling air until the wind fills my breast. Then I jump into the surf. The air hums through me as I climb to a higher current and zip through the pines. I’ll have a better chance hunting game from the sky.

I dodge a tree and duck under a branch. The whole day of practice served me well—I’ve improved a lot since yesterday morning.
How is it possible?
I wonder yet again.
I’m not a windwalker. Does that mean anyone can do this?
I couldn’t see the wind until I looked for it, so maybe that’s all it takes.

I bump into a pine bough, and suddenly, a furry shape leaps off the branch. “Whoa!” I tread air and watch as a flying squirrel jumps to the branch below me.
That’ll work.
It’s small, but I don’t have time to find anything else. As it leaps to another bough, I raise my gun and fire at its head.

I miss, and the kickback knocks me against a branch. The thwack on my head makes me lose my concentration, and I slip to a lower current and another, hitting more branches on the way down until I crash on the ground. I groan as I stand up. I’ll have another bruise to add to my collection. I feel my head. My hair is sticky with sap.
Great.
Now I’m sweaty and nasty and even hungrier. I slap at a mosquito.

A large branch is in my path. I kick it out of the way then jump back when I see what’s beneath it. My squirrel. Dead. The bullet must have hit the branch, which in turn must have hit the rodent. I pick up the dead animal with a stick.
Not much meat, but it will serve as breakfast, for one.

I return to camp, making sure Rye sees my catch.

“You wasted a bullet on that thing?” he asks. I notice he’s eaten all the fish.

“I didn’t want to lose time hunting for something bigger,” I say.

“Good, because we’re leaving.”

“What—now?” And then I notice that he’s also taken apart the fire pit.

“You’ve given away our location. We can’t stay here any longer.” As he walks over to the gear, I glare at his back, but I feel my chest constrict. Have I really just told the Rangi where we are?

“What do I do with this?” I hold up the squirrel, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“Eat it raw or bring it with you.”

Eat it raw or bring it with you
, I mimic, but I can’t quite pull the face I want.

We resume our journey, the dead squirrel strapped to the backpack, the backpack strapped to my shoulders, and just like yesterday, Rye takes the lead
.
He moves quickly, and I have to concentrate to keep up. His movements are tight, edgy, and soon I feel my neck muscles tense, find myself looking constantly over my shoulder, wondering how close the Rangi are. Rye continues to push us, and I try to stop thinking about it in order to maintain
honga
and match his pace.

It feels good to be off the ground, at least. The wind whisks away my sweat, the mosquitos can’t catch me, and after an hour or so, the humming breeze drives away the majority of my fears. I even forget that I’m hungry and focus solely on the tingling air that fills my body.

The wind is strong, stronger than yesterday, and I feel it pulsing through my legs. My thighs are still tired, but I discover I can lean back slightly and use my grasp on the air to support my body, like a windsurfer holding onto her mast.

When we’ve gone for several hours with no sign of the Rangi, I allow myself to experiment with other tricks, like stretching out flat and riding the current, skimming just above the water, rolling in place. When we stop briefly for lunch—a lucky find: blueberries and wild leeks—I even try a front flip.

But my favorite is surfing with the current. Going really, really fast. Even when the wind isn’t super powerful, I can still accelerate. It’s like pulling myself forward with a rope or running on a moving sidewalk. It requires all of my attention, though. My mind has to be focused on that objective alone. But when I get it right, it’s the most incredible feeling in the universe.

As we travel, I learn a few other things. That if the wind changes, I have to climb higher or return to the ground and walk. That I need to keep my eyes open for cross winds. And above all, that if the threads of air start to fade, I have to find a new current immediately or, at the very least, grab onto a branch.

We windwalk until the sky softens into amaranth and pumpkin and set up camp without speaking. We haven’t spoken all day. While Rye goes to look for dinner, lashing his pocketknife onto a branch like in the fishing contest, I finally skin the now reeking squirrel. It seems smaller than ever, and only my pride keeps me from throwing it into the forest.

Should I apologize again?
I wonder as I skewer the tiny body on a stick. No, I did that enough already.

Rye returns, sopping wet, with two fish. We eat quietly, and then I break the silence by volunteering to take the first watch. “That way, I won’t fall asleep on the job,” I say. “I’ll wake you when I get too tired.”
There, that’s the most he’s going to get.

“I’ll plan to be woken up in a couple of hours then.” A shade of a smile flicks across his lips then disappears.

I look down at my hands as a strange tickle surfaces in my chest.

We eat more fish for breakfast the next morning. Rye’s still not very talkative, but he has nothing to complain about today: I kept watch for more than half the night.

“We’ve entered Alberta now,” Rye says as we get ready to leave. “We’re about a quarter of the way there.”

Two hundred miles in three days—no one would believe it. But we still have six hundred miles to go.
Six hundred miles to figure out what I’m going to do.

Rye allows us to go higher today, maybe ten or fifteen feet above the treetops. By the way my shirt beats against my back, I’d classify the wind up here as a strong breeze—twenty-five to thirty-one miles per hour. Small drops of water leak out of my eyes, making me understand why windwalkers need special equipment to reach even greater altitudes.

I mark the passing of the hours by the sun’s steady movement, by the changing clouds, by our shadows on the pines. We cross paths with a flock of geese, honking and flapping in their rotating V. I think about the
kiipooyaq
contest, and it gives me an idea.

When we stop for the night, I cut some of the cords from the backpack and tie them together so I have a rope with three ends. Then I find three rocks of equal weight and size and fasten them onto the tips. I practice throwing my crude weapon a few times to make sure it works. Amazingly, it does.

“I’ll get dinner tonight,” I tell Rye. He’s been leaning against a tree, watching me. His face is hidden in the shadows, so I can’t read his expression.

“I’ll make a fire,” he says.

I walk the short distance to a nearby lake and windwalk over the water. Earlier, when we came down, I saw some birds feeding on the far shore, and even now I can hear their loud calls. It doesn’t take me long to find them. A flock of geese. Not Canadian geese, like the ones we passed earlier today. These are smaller, probably only half the size of the Canadians, and they’re covered in bluish-gray plumage.

With so many to choose from, I have no difficulty catching one, and soon I return to camp with a five-pound bird under my arm. I think Rye is impressed when he sees me, but it’s hard to tell because his expressions vanish so quickly, so different from the boy I first saw laughing in the dining hall, dancing around the fire, staring at me across the room.

I focus on plucking the bird. Honestly, I don’t know where my thoughts come from sometimes.

After we’ve picked the bones clean, we linger around the fire, letting the warm food settle in our stomachs. Rye whittles something with the pocketknife, and I decide it’s safe to ask a question.

“How many tribes are there?”

He looks at me. “You still can’t remember?”

“No.”

He tears a piece of dead skin from his lip. “Seven,” he says. “There used to be hundreds, a long time ago, before we were born. But too many windwalkers died off, so the tribes merged together. The Yakone used to be just the windwalkers in Alaska and the Arctic regions of Canada. Now all the windwalkers in Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and the top third of the United States belong to our tribe.”

I whistle. “That’s a big area. How often does our tribe get together?”

“Not often.” His eyebrows crease as he looks at me. “Once a year maybe, and even then not everyone comes. The youth who are ready to be tested—usually at age sixteen—gather every September and are assigned their place in the community. And then there’s a celebration in the spring where the
tooka
of the competitions are honored and the victors of the battles fight for the title of grand champion,
Tookapuna
.”

I remember Lila talking about that. “What places are we assigned?”

He breathes out through his lips. “You know, storyteller, artisan, builder, gardener, warrior. Mostly warrior.”

“And these become our jobs?”

“No. Because we live among humans, we all get human jobs and live like humans. But these are our responsibilities within the tribe. The storytellers preserve our history, the warriors defend the tribe during war—”

“How often is there a war?”

“We haven’t had one since my grandfather was alive.”

“So, the warriors are like the National Guard, and now that there’s been an attack they’ll gather together to fight the Rangi?”

“Something like that.” He studies me. “Funny that you remember what the National Guard is but nothing about our tribe.”

“Not that funny,” I say. He says nothing.

After a long pause, I speak again. “So the testing was supposed to tell us what our obligations would be to the tribe. But they’re not a full-time job or anything.”

“Right. The only exception is the
Riki
and the
Matoa
—the chief and the captain of the warriors. Everyone in the tribe contributes a small portion of their income to support them so they can devote their time to protecting the tribe.”

“They didn’t do a very good job, did they?”

Rye gives me a sharp look but doesn’t respond.

“What will happen this year?” I ask quickly.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.

We’re both silent for a moment, and then I ask, “What tribe did your family belong to before the Yakone?”

“My great-grandfather was Okłumin, but they don’t exist anymore.”

“What happened?”

Rye resumes his whittling. “The usual. Killed by other windwalkers, killed by humans.”

“How were they killed by humans?”

“On accident—by airplanes, power lines, disease. It became difficult to meet as a tribe, to windwalk without being noticed. Eventually, most of them decided it would be easier to live like humans instead of fight it.”