Well in Time Read Free Page A

mining is disturbing them. But worse still are the
narcotraficantes
. They are bringing violence to our peaceful land.”
    Javier sat gazing into the fire, listening solemnly. It was not news that the drug cartels were disrupting things. All of Mexican culture was suffering. Thousands of people had already lost their lives in drug-related violence. Every day there were new reports of the growing power and menace of the drug mafias. Their power even threatened to overwhelm the central government of the country.
    Jeronimo, too, listened carefully, nodding his head. “What would the spirits have us do?” he asked at last.
    Alejandro began a detailed explanation of the rituals that were to be performed, in rapid Huichol. Javier, whose Huichol was rudimentary, sat staring into the coals, lost in thought, so that he was jolted when Alejandro suddenly turned his attention on him and said, “The Wind Person has a message for you.”
    “What is it, please?”
    “The message is this: there is no time to lose. Danger is everywhere. Protect your home and your loved ones. The times are dark.”
    Javier stared at him in alarm. “What does that mean?”
    “It means,” said Alejandro grimly, “that you’d better get your ass out of here. Get into your truck,
now
, and go home. The spirits do not speak in vain.”
*
    §
*
Rancho Cielo
*
    Hill unpacked his small suitcase into the hulking Colonial-era
armario
in the guest room, smiling to himself. It felt so familiar to be here. Memories of his last visit, now more than two years in the past, rose to reassure him that he was welcome.
    He thought of the final night of his last stay, when they had sat in the courtyard on the very edge of the canyon, chatting into the night. There were no city lights, no traffic noise. The abyss of the canyon was a cauldron of ink, the sky a poppy field of stars. The world was reduced to firelight, shifting shadows, soft voices. Contained in a cocoon of reminiscence, they scarcely stirred.
    “Picasso said that everything you can imagine is real,” Hill had offered into the conversational pot already simmering among them. “If that’s true, then I need to tell you that this night—being together with you both—has happened before. I remember it. Is that real or imagination? Or is there a difference?”
    Javier stirred up the embers in the fire pit and dropped another log into the flames. “Here? What were we? Indigenous?
Conquistadores?
”
    “I don’t know. Maybe not here. Maybe somewhere else.”
    “Maybe you’re remembering Chiapas. Sitting in the ruin around the cook fire,” Calypso offered.
    “No. I don’t think it’s that. But I’ve sat with you both, just this way, in just this energy.”
    “Energy? Are you becoming a New Ager, Walter?” Calypso’s voice wafted out of shadow like a moth, delicate and pale. Teasing.
    A bird muttered as the night wind lifted the branches of the alamos
.
Firelight washed adobe walls with rose. “Say something, Walter,” Calypso spoke into the silence. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
    “There’s nothing more to say.” His tone was stubborn.
    “Now Walter…” she began sweetly.
    “Caleepso”—Javier cut in—“you talk about energy all the time. A group of people. The mood of the weather. Your sense of a new horse. So why question Hill about it?”
    Calypso leaned toward the fire, her beautiful face framed in her shadowy mane, like the white moon emerging from cloud. “Because Walter is so rational, and I always think he judges me for saying those things. Do you, Walter?”
    Toward the front of the house, a guard coughed, then was silent. Hill leaned back in his chaise lounge, and stared at the starry sky tented over them, taking his time to answer. It was this woman’s genius to bring the hidden parts of him to light. If she were to know this about him, he wanted it succinct and accurate, just like the facts he collected for his newspaper articles. He didn’t want to have to