Well in Time Read Free

he nor Jeronimo could interpret this, but Jeronimo insisted it was an assurance of spiritual aid in some situation still to be. “There are many dimensions,” the old man explained. “They circle and spiral back upon themselves, creating the pattern of the universe which is always dying, and being reborn. Nothing is a straight line. Therefore, somewhere the future is already known, and the spirits are preparing it for us and preparing our protection and guidance so that we learn and grow in safety.”
    “Does this mean that some danger will come to Calypso?”
    The old singer shrugged. “
¿Quien sabe?
Who knows? Mystery is the deepest reality of all.”
*
    §
*
    Sleep evaded Javier in the freezing Sierra night, as he curled around the inner fender of his truck, thinking of Calypso and their last night together at Rancho Cielo. At her vanity, brushing her hair, she had set down her brush and come to him, an undulant flow of white gown and black hair in the lamplight. Sitting beside him, she reached a hand to his face, and held his eyes with a penetrating look.
    “You are the rarest of men, my love, the most generous-spirited man in the world. It’s why I can’t keep my hands off you!” She slipped her cold hands across his bare chest and thrust them into the warmth of his armpits, her knowing smile saying that the reaction was predictable.
    “My God, Caleepso!” He laughed and grabbed her wrists. “You trying to kill me? You need some warming up!” He rolled back on the bed, pulling her on top of him, and gathered her hands together to begin nibbling on her fingertips. “I’ll start on the periphery and work inward.”
    Calypso laughed and struggled to free herself, then submitted. “I’m your captive. Do with me what you will,” she said, with a sigh that was more delighted than resigned.
    Javier held her cold fingers to his lips and kissed the tips. So many years they had been together. So many struggles and cares. Still, contact with this woman’s body never failed to move him. Something electric, yet deeply grounded, flowed between them at the smallest contact, as if all joy resided in their conjoined flesh.
    On sudden impulse, he drew her body closer and held her tightly. “Caleepso, Caleepso…” he breathed.
    She sensed something unusual in his touch. “What is it, Javier?”
    He shook his head, his chin resting on the top of her head with a somber weight. Words could not express the painful sense of longing that coursed through him. “It’s as if I have to leave you for a long time,” he said at last. “As if…I don’t know.” He held her even more tightly to him.
    “You sound so sad, my love.”
    “I just could not bear to lose you, Caleepso.”
    She struggled from his grasp and turned so she could see his face. “Lose me? What are you saying?”
    “It’s just a feeling I have. I can’t explain it.”
    “Sometimes people say,
Like someone is walking on my grave
. Is it like that? Creepy?”
    He gazed into her eyes with a look bordering on despair. “I don’t know, Caleepso. I just don’t want to lose you.” And he had pulled her into his chest again and held her fiercely.
    The emotion was so urgent that it blasted him out of reverie. Above him, the frosty stars burned and glittered. If they were gods, he thought, pulling the sleeping bag closer around his neck, they were far too remote. How could they know or care what befell men on earth? A cold wind rattled through the surrounding brush, and he listened to it until he fell asleep.
*
    §
*
    At last, Alejandro returned. He had run for three days, fueled by
hicouri
, following the whirlwind as it blasted and sucked and twirled its way through the desert.
    “
Ea’ca Téihuari
is angry,” he avowed by the fire, his thin face glowing like oiled wood within the wild snarls of his hair.
    His body looked sunken, depleted, and one foot was swollen from a cactus thorn inside its battered sandal. “The wind spirits are gathering. The