The trouble was, this was the fourth animal he"d come across in just over a week slaughtered like this, and not a single sign, not a single print, not a single G.o.dd.a.m.n hint of what had killed them. Or rather, what had stripped off their hides. For no reason he could put a ringer on, he didn"t think they had been killed first. He reckoned the creatures had either died of the shock or had bled to death.
Just like he was about to die of the smell if he didn"t get out of here.
He brushed a hand over his mouth as he turned and walked back to the car. Donna followed him slowly, humming to herself and snapping her fingers.
The thing of it was, Sparrow thought as he slid down the shallow ditch and took two grunting strides up the other side, if this was confined to just animals, there wouldn"t be such a stink of another kind in the office.
That there were also three people dead, obvi-ously of the same thing-whatever the h.e.l.l that was-had put the fire on. So to speak. And every time someone called in with another claim, it was Sparrow who personally checked it out. It wasn"t that he didn"t trust any of his deputies. Thirty-five years roaming the side roads of the desert, talking to the Indians in Santo Domingo, San Felipe and the other pueblos, getting to know the hills and mountains until he could walk them practically blindfolded, did that to a man-made him the so-called area expert, even when he didn"t want to be, hadn"t asked to be, and would have given his right arm just to be plain stupid.
He reached in the driver"s-side window and grabbed the mike, called in and told the dis-patcher what he"d found and where. While Donna watched him distrustfully, he ordered a van to pick up the carca.s.s, and a vet standing by to handle the examination. When he was finished, he dropped the mike onto the seat and leaned back against the door, arms folded across a chest nearly as broad as the stomach below it.
"You think you might go talk to Annie?" She stood in the middle of the two-lane road, sketch-ing senseless patterns in the dust that turned the blacktop gray.
"What for?" He waved vaguely to his right. "Her place is too far away"
"Might be one of hers."
"Probably," he admitted. Then he gestured toward the hill, meaning what lay a mile or so beyond, what some of the locals called the Konochine Wall. "Might be one of theirs, too, you ever think of that?"She didn"t look, and he smiled. Donna Falkner didn"t much care for the Konochine. For years they had refused her offers to broker whatever craftwork they wanted to sell; once they had even chased her off the reservation. Literally chased her, yelling and waving whatever came to hand, as if they wanted to drag her up Sangre Viento Mesa and drop her off, just as they had done to the Spanish priests and soldiers during the Pueblo Revolt over three hundred years before.
The difference was, the Spaniards never returned to the Konochine. No one knew why.
Now there was a middleman, Nick Lanaya, who worked with her, so she never had to set foot on the reservation at all.
"Satanists," Donna suggested then, still toeing the blacktop, hands in her hip pockets.
Sparrow snorted. He had been through the entire list of the usuals, from Satanists all the way to half-a.s.sed dopeheads who thought they could bring on a better world by chopping the heads off calves and goats. None of them, as far as he knew, killed like this, or killed both animals and people quite so ruthlessly and left the bodies behind.
But then, he wasn"t an expert there, and he sighed as he finally admitted that maybe it was time to bring those experts in. Pride and getting nowhere fast were getting him crucified in the papers.
Two men sat on a hillside, their loose-fitting clothes as brown and tan as the ground around them. The first was old, his straight hair dull white and touching his bony shoulders. The planes of his face were sharp, the dark skin creva.s.sed around the mouth and deep-set eyes. There was a necklace of rattlesnake spine around his neck.
The second man was much younger, but not young. His hair was still black, pulled back into a ponytail held by a braided circlet of gold and turquoise. His knees were drawn up, and his hands dangled between them, long fingers con-stantly moving like reeds in a slow wind.
When they spoke, which wasn"t often, it was in a combination of b.a.s.t.a.r.d Spanish and Konochine.
"Father," the younger man said, att.i.tude and voice deferential and weary, "you have to stop it."
The old man shook his head.
"But you know what he"s doing. He"s d.a.m.ning us all."
No answer.
The younger man reached for a tuft of gra.s.s, stopping himself just before he grabbed it. The blades were sharp; had he pulled, they would have drawn blood. He grabbed a stone instead and flung it hard down the slope.
Below was the road that led out of the gap, past Annie Hatch"s ranch to the interstate. Behind was Sangre Viento Mesa.
"People are dying, Dugan," he said at last, abandoning honorifics for first names. "He takes them as far away as Albuquerque now." He didn"t turn his head; he knew the old man wasn"t watching, "it"s gotten too big to hide. They"re going to come sooner or later, the authorities. We won"t be able to keep them out."
The old man touched his necklace. "They can come, Nick. They can look. They won"t find any-thing."
"And if they do?" the younger man persisted.
The old man almost smiled. "They won"t believe it."
Donna watched the sheriff"s car speed away, dust swirling into rooster tails from its rear tires. She knew his ego had taken a fierce beating because he hadn"t yet been able to locate the cult behind the atrocities, but she didn"t think he or the city police were looking in the right place. Haunting the downtown Albuquerque bars and sending undercover men to the university wasn"t going to accomplish anything but pay out more overtime.
She squinted at the sky, saw nothing but a wisp of a cloud that looked lost amid all that washed-out blue.
The Journal and the Tribune were screaming for someone"s blood, and if Sparrow didn"t watch out, it was going to be his.
Not, she thought sourly as she headed back to her car, that it was any concern of hers. He was a bigboy. He could take care of himself. Just because he never paid her any mind whenever she tried to give him a hand, just because he thought she was a little off-center, just because he never gave her the time of day unless she asked him right out...
"s.h.i.t," she said, and kicked at the Cherokee"s front tire. "Idiot."
She swung herself in, hissing sharply when her fingers grabbed the hot steering wheel and snapped away. A pair of colorless work gloves lay on the pa.s.senger seat, and she slipped them on, glancing in the rearview mirror, then looking toward the hill and the cloud of flies that marked the steer"s carca.s.s. Her stomach lurched; a slow deep breath settled it.
This wasn"t like her at all.
She had seen worse out in the desert, and much worse in town, after a knife fight or a shooting. She had no idea why this spooked her so much.
A quick turn of the key fired the engine, and another glance in the rearview nearly made her scream.
A pickup more rust and dust than red streaked directly toward her rear b.u.mper, sunlight exploding from the windshield, the grill like a mouth of gleaming shark"s teeth.
She braced herself for the impact, but the truck swerved at the last second, slowed abruptly, and pa.s.sed her so sedately she wondered if it had really been speeding at all, if it hadn"t been her imagination.
A look to her right, and the other driver stared back.
Oh G.o.d, she thought.
A gray hat pulled low, black sungla.s.ses, long black hair in a ponytail that reached to the center of the man"s back.
Leon Ciola.
She didn"t realize she was holding her breath until the pickup disappeared ahead of the dust its tires raised; then she sagged against the seat, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes. Air con-ditioning spilled across her lap; she shivered but didn"t turn it down or deflect it elsewhere. She kept her eyes closed until she couldn"t stand it. When they opened, she was alone; even the dust had gone.
Go, she ordered as she swallowed dryly; go home, girl.
It took her ten minutes before she could take the wheel again without shaking, another ten minutes before she realized she wasn"t moving and tromped on the accelerator, ignoring the machine gun that rattled beneath the carriage, fighting the fishtail until the vehicle straightened, and the sun made her blind to everything but the road.
Home first, and a drink. Then she would call Sparrow and tell him Ciola was back.
She had a feeling the sheriff would be royally p.i.s.sed.
The younger man stood, mock-groaning as he rubbed the small of his back and stretched his legs to relieve the stiffness. He tried again: "Dugan, we can"t let this happen. It will ruin everything we"ve worked for."
The old man didn"t rise, didn"t look back. His gaze "seemed to focus on the dust clouds in the distance.
"We can"t stop it, Nick."
"Maybe not, but we can stop him."
"We don"t know for sure."
But d.a.m.nit, we do, the younger man thought angrily; we know d.a.m.n well it"s him, and we"re doing nothing about it. Nothing at all.
Asked softly: "What if you"re wrong?"
Nick shook his head, though he knew the old man couldn"t see it. "If I am wrong, what have we lost?
The Anglos come in, they look around, they go away, we"re left alone. What have we lost, Dugan?"
Answered softly: "What is ours."
Again the younger man shook his head. This was an argument as old as he, and older: let more of the world in, it can be done without loss, we have television and radio, for crying out loud; or, keep the world out because it has nothing to do with what makes us what we are.
It was the reason the young were leaving, many of them not coming back.In a single motion so rapid and smooth it seemed like no motion at all, the old man was on his feet, dusting off his pants, checking the time by the sun. Without speaking he walked to the top of the hill, Nick following to one side and a step behind. When they reached the crest, Dugan pointed to the pale ghost of the moon.
"One more night and it will be done."
Nick said nothing, and the silence spelled his doubt.
"One more night" The old man took his arm; the way down into the valley was slippery and steep. "It takes faith these days, you know." The hint of a smile. "A lot more than it used to, I"m afraid. But it is there."
It wasn"t the faith Nick worried about. He had it, too, and even during his time in the outside world, he had kept it.
It wasn"t the faith.
It was the killing.
It was what the killing would bring.
Mulder strolled into his office whistling. It was the kind of day that began with a gorgeous, unreal sunrise, Holly- wood at its best, and carried that so well, he was half-afraid he was earning. The heat wave had broken three days before, bringing springlike temperatures to the capital, light showers at night to wash the streets, and a steady breeze that had thus far kept pollu-tion from hazing the blue sky.
Leaves weren"t dusty, the flowers were bright... it was so utterly perfect, it was d.a.m.n close to sickening.
But he"d take it. He wasn"t that much of a fool.
It took a second for him to notice Scully in his chair.
"Morning," he said brightly.
Since the meeting with Skinner, he had resolved two more knots in two more cases that had been bugging him for weeks. For a change, the agents involved were openly and immediately grateful; egos weren"t bruised, and two more of the bad guys were on their way to capture.
He also wasn"t surprised that Beth Neuhouse, unlike Bournell, hadn"t come around to apologize for her behavior In fact, he hadn"t seen her for a week, another sign that life was good and maybe he"d beenmistaken about the reprimand setup.
All he needed now was a generous supply of sunflower seeds, and things would be perfect.
"So what"s up?" he asked, dropping his brief-case beside an overloaded desk, Scully reached down beside her, and tossed him a plastic bag.
He caught it against his chest one-handed and held it up. It was a half-pound of sunflower seeds. He smiled. A sign; it had to be a sign. The smile turned to suspicion. "You hate it when I eat these things. It gets messy. You hate messy." He hefted the bag. "What"s the catch?"
She shrugged innocently and reached down again, into her own briefcase. She wore a green suit and loose matching blouse fastened at the collar.
"What"s the catch, Scully?" he repeated, tossing the bag onto his desk.
She held up a folder, waggled it, and placed it in her lap almost primly.
He stared at the folder, at her, and at the sun-flower seeds. They were definitely a sign, and he had no intention of reading it.
Scully smiled faintly at his expression. "Don"t worry. You"ll probably like this one."
He waited.
She settled back in the chair. "So, what do you know about cattle mutilations?"
"Oh, please, Scully, not that again, please." He crossed to a wheeled office chair and dropped into it, swiveling around to face her as he crossed his legs at the knee. He wasn"t going to answer what was obviously a rhetorical question, until he realized he had to. She was preparing him, preparing his mind for something "ordinary" didn"t describe.
"All right." He clasped his hands loosely, elbows on the chair"s arms. "Depending on who you talk to, you either have half-baked cults that demand bizarre sacrifices-cows being the ani-mal of choice-secret government experiments in immunology based on actual and potential chem-. ical warfare, chemical warfare tests alone, or .. ." He looked at the ceiling. "Or experiments with alleged alien-based technology." He shook his head slowly. "To name a few."
Without responding, she flipped open the folder "The cattle are either bled, they have sec-tions of hide and/or muscle and/or organs removed-"
"-or they"re just sliced all to h.e.l.l and left in the middle of a field for some poor farmer to fall over. So what? You know this isn"t the sort of thing I-" He stopped, and they looked at each other.
He had almost said, "need to know."
He broke contact first, staring at the tip of his shoe. "Where?"
"New Mexico."
He barked a laugh. "Cattle mutilations? Right. Near Roswell, I suppose. Come on, Scully, give me a break. I"m not about to get into that-"
She held up a pair of photographs without comment.
After a moment he took them; after another moment, he placed both feet on the floor and leaned over, elbows now resting on his thighs. It took a while for him to understand what he was looking at, and when he did, he inhaled quickly.
At first they seemed to be little more than solid ma.s.ses of stained white and gray lying on what appeared to be bare earth. Sandy, grainy, maybe desert ground. A blink to change the perspective, and their forms resolved into the carca.s.ses of animals that had been skinned, stripped in some areas right to the bone. There was virtually nothing left of their heads but exposed skull.
"The one on the left," she told him, ""hadn"t been found for a couple of days."
Its eyes were gone, and a closer examination showed him swarming ants, and a few flies the photographer hadn"t been able to shoo away. Its hind legs had been twisted from their sockets; its mouth was open, the tongue still there, but it was much smaller, thinner than it ought to be, and evi-dently raw.
Although there were shadows, and although he tried, he couldn"t spot any pools or traces of blood.
He glanced up, frowning. "Blood?"
Scully nodded. "I know, I"ve looked, too. If it"s exsanguination, it"s almost too well done. Otherwise ..." A one-shoulder shrug. "Cauter-ization is about the only other thing I can think of. Based on thepictures, that is. To know exactly, we"ll have to talk to those who were at the scene."