Bentley Little - The Walking

And then he was in a cave, looking out. He knew this spot. He had seen it before, only then it had been through the eyes of a younger Isabella in an earlier time, and it had been from the doorway of a hut.

The area had changed over the millennia, but there was no mistatdng the peculiar appearance of the rock formations, no disguising the fact that the country outside the cave was the same unique landscape he had viewed from this same vantage point in an unknown era that predated recorded history.

Above the cloud cover, he heard the roar of a military jet.

And then it was over, he was out, he was once again himself. He was facing the horizon, that surreal version of Monument Valley, and he recognized that this was the area he had just seen in the vision. The angle from which he had viewed it could only have originated in the canyons up ahead.

From that direction came the fading sound of a jet above the clouds.

Once again Miles wondered why he was being shown this. As much as he tiled to tell himself that it was coincidental, that he was accidentally tapping into some psychic wavelength like an antenna catching television signals, he could not help feeling that specific knowledge was being provided to him intentionally.

Claire touched his cheek, looked at him with concern. "Are you all right? It looked like you were..." She trailed off, not knowing how to describe what he'd been like for those brief seconds he'd been out.

"I'm free," he assured her. He turned toward Garden and Hal, tried to ignore the legs of his father scissored into the air next to him. "I know where she went," he said. "I know where she is."

Hal's gaze followed the claw-foot tracks into the distance. "How far is it?"

'l'hose canyons up ahead." "You think we'll be able to get there before it gets dark?"

Miles glanced up at the filtered light of the unchanging sun. "Even if it takes all day."

They were all silent.

"What do we do when we get there?" Garden asked finally.

Miles picked up the jar, Started walking. "Don't worry. We'll think of something."

-The land here seemed wrong. The geologic formations of the earth itself were odd and disturbing, containing angles and shapes that appeared nowhere else in nature, and even the consistency of the air seemed different the closer they came to the canyons. The cliffs and crags, the mesas and bluffs, all looked similar to what he had seen from the entryway of the cave, and Miles knew they were approaching their destination.

Isabella's tracks--if that was indeed what they were-had disappeared almost immediately, fading into the increasingly soft sand, but Miles knew the direction in which she'd been headed, and he had no trouble staying on course. They'd been hiking for what felt like the entire afternoon,

but with no working watches and no visual confirmation from the position of the sun, he couldn't tell how long it had actually been.

They had finished up Hal's Dr. Peppers, leaving the cans as a trail, and now only the water in Garden's canteens was left to slake their thirst.

Well before they reached the big canyon, a massive gorge visible from miles away that, in Miles' mind at least, compared favorably to the Grand Canyon, they came across the dry bed of an obviously seasonal river. The river apparently emptied into the canyon or one of its offshoots, and Miles looked down the sloping length of the sandy bed and decided that they probably would not be able to find an easier entry into the canyon lands than this. After a quick discussion, they decided to follow the empty riverbed down.

Around them, the desert grew tall, with marbled white and red sandstone giving way to grayer granite as they descended into the earth. The riverbed grew smaller, forking off, eventually disappearing entirely in a maze of high, narrow flash-flood canyons that merged into each other and spoked off and wound around in a confusing convoluted labyrinth.

They could no longer be sure in which direction they were traveling--the sky above was only an unhelpful slit at the top of the rounded cliffs--but Miles trusted his gut and the rest of them trusted Miles, and holding tightly to the dream jar May had given him, he led them forward.

Eventually, the ravine they were following opened out into a wider canyon. Miles had the sense that they were being watched by something unseen, and he suddenly felt uncomfortable being out in the open like this. The others must have felt the same because no one dared speak, and they walked around tangled washed-out branches and the trunks of dead leafless trees that had been swept here by water and trapped between boulders.

Around a curve of the canyon, indentations in the rock face were home to crumbling rock walls with small window

holes. He'd seen pictures of Canyon de Chelly, with its famous Indian rains, and that was what this reminded him of. Only... Only he wasn't sure that these walls had been built by

Indians.

Or anything human.

The canyon widened, spread out, then narrowed unexpectedly just beyond a nearly ninety-degree turn. Here, in front of the cliffs, a low stone wall was broken up, differentiated into hoodoos and stand-alone columns. The rocks, he thought, looked almost like people. Whether they were eroded naturally by the elements into these shapes or whether they had been deliberately carved and then weathered by the rain and sand and sun Until the edges that granted them sharpness of definition had been blunted and smoothed, he could not tell, but the sight was unnerving. He was reminded of that terra-cotta army that had been found in China-"I dug this hole. It leads to China."

--and the sensation that they were walking through a crowd of people who'd been solidified into stone could not be shaken. He quickened his pace, aware of the fact that for the first time since they'd started walking he was breathing heavily, straining for oxygen. He heard Claire breathing next to him, and he announced, "We're almost there."

No one responded.

He thought of the dream he'd had last night. The tingling in his midsection had returned, and once again it occurred to him that by dint of his heritage he was a part of this. He had been purposefully drawn into this situation because of who and what he was. N o, thing was an accident and subtle as it might seem, his dad s death and Marina walking into the agency office looking for help with her father were all part of some unseen plan.

The jar in his hand suddenly seemed heavier, the shape of the spoon in his front pocket pronounced against the skin

of his thigh. The necklace of teeth felt cold on his skin, but strangely enough, it also felt reassuring, and he was glad he had it with him.

Soon afterward they came to a confluence of canyons. The sky was still overcast, and Miles could not detelmine the position of the sun from this angle, but it seemed darker all of a sudden, as though evening had held off until their arrival. The sulfur smell was back, too, strongly, and next to him Claire placed her free hand over her nose to block the stench. Miles stopped, not sure in which direction to proceed. On one rock wall was the shadow of a woman that looked remarkably like his mother, but he turned away, not wanting to see, sensing somehow that to gaze upon the form would... what? Turn him to salt? Turn him to stone? Render him mad?

He had no idea, but looking upon the shadow figure was dangerous, he knew that much.

"Hey," Hal said. "That's my morn."

"Don't look at that!" Miles ordered, whirling to face his friend. "All of you! Don't look!"

Garden seemed to understand instinctively, and when he spoke his voice was hushed. "What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know. But there are probably going to be a lot of things like it coming up. We need to be careful from here on in. Stay close together, and if there's anything unusual, give out a shout. We have to be on our toes."