Storm of Locusts

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  “He knew my brother, knows that part of my life. And he gets me, you know?” She lowers her head. “He respects who I am.” Her mouth quirks up at the side. “And he’s got a really big dick.”

  I spit my coffee on the pavement. She laughs. Slaps my leg. “Come on. Let’s go find the others. Did you know there’s a lower-level garage full of vintage automobiles here? Aaron and Ben are picking out a car, but I don’t really trust their tastes.”

  “Jesus, Rissa. Does Grace know you talk like that?”

  She waggles her eyebrows at me. “Where do you think I learned it?”

  She’s probably right. I push myself up off the curb, stretching in the morning light. Happy to get back on the road soon. “By the way,” I say, “I meant that angel thing as a compliment.”

  She laughs, and it turns into a belch. “Sure you did, Maggie. Sure you did.”

  * * *

  The casino does, in fact, let me in, and after a quick shower, Rissa and I head down to the garage. The car Aaron has picked out of an impressive garage of vintage cars is a 1950 Mercury Cobra, a two-door coupe with a drop-top, painted turquoise blue with a darker lid. It’s outrageous, a classic lead sled, the likes of which I’ve never seen in person. I fall in love immediately.

  “Want to drive?” he asks, holding out the keys.

  “I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

  “What about these other cars?” Ben asks. She points to a late-model German import. It looks fast enough, serviceable.

  “No style,” I tell her. “Why would you pick that when you can drive this—”

  “—hunk of metal that is almost a hundred years old if it’s a day,” Rissa interrupts. “I mean, I don’t know. Reliability? Comfort? Safety?”

  Aaron’s face falls a little, but I say, “You don’t know beauty when you see it.” I unbuckle the scabbard holding Neizghání’s sword and hand it to Ben. Pause for a moment to take in her new outfit. Same big boots with green camo pants a few sizes too big and a plain black T-shirt.

  “What happened to the dress?” I ask.

  She shrugs one thin shoulder. “You were right. It wasn’t very practical. I need to be focused on the task at hand.”

  “Which is?”

  “Killing the White Locust.”

  “Right.” I open the door to the Mercury and slide into the low boxy interior. Feel the leather seats under my ass. Maybe purr a little.

  “It’s the real deal, too,” Aaron says enthusiastically. “They used to build knockoffs, fiberglass wannabes, but this is all Detroit steel.”

  “Now you’re just trying to sweet-talk me, Aaron.”

  He grins. “Try the engine.”

  It turns over without a hitch.

  “Well, at least it runs,” Rissa mutters. “What about fuel?”

  “There’s enough. Engine’s been modified. Extra tank, too. Made for desert crossings. Look at this.”

  Aaron draws our attention to a complex HVAC system that includes a series of vents, blowers, and a breathing mask. “It’s to filter the air,” he explains. “And to try to keep it cool during the day, but I’m afraid it’s still going to bake like the proverbial oven. Can’t be helped. Oh, I almost forgot. I found this.”

  Aaron hands me a glossy folded brochure. I take it. Smooth out the trifold. In an understated script, it reads: THE AMANGIRI RESORT & SPA, CANYON POINT, UTAH. The inside describes a five-star experience, including luxury accommodations, an award-winning spa, and fine dining.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “In the lobby of the casino. One of those kiosks with handouts on all the local attractions.”

  “This has got to be it,” I say, looking through the elegant photos of the wealthy and relaxed enjoying the exclusive amenities of Amangiri. “But a luxury resort?”

  “Makes sense,” Rissa says, looking over my shoulder. “It’s probably long abandoned, but it checks all the boxes. Secluded, exclusive. Big enough to house all his minions.”

  She’s right. “How long does it take to get to”—I turn it over to look at the front again—“Canyon Point, Utah?”

  “Depends on the road,” Aaron says. “I haven’t been north of Flagstaff in more than a year, but last time Bishop had us venture up, the road was in pretty good shape. There’s a handful of settlements out that way. You’re close enough to the Kingdom that there’s not too much to worry about safety-wise. Bishop tried to make some headway out there, for our . . . enterprises”—he glances at Rissa, who’s looking pointedly at her own fingernails—“but the Kingdom was reluctant. Slaughtered half the crew in a shootout. Called us godless and said don’t come back unless it was with a Book of Mormon in our hands.”

  “But I saw Kingdom representatives at the Knifetown auction,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I’m no politician. From here, Canyon Point’s likely three, four hours, depending on the condition of the roads. Could be longer if there’s trouble or if the highway’s shot to shit.”

  “What about Wahweap?”

  “What’s a Wahweap?”

  “The place Nohoilpi said to go. He said that was our way in to Amangiri. Do you see it on the map?”

  Aaron dutifully checks the map. “I see it. Just down the lake from Canyon Point. Right on Lake Powell. Looks like we could take a boat from there to Canyon Point, come in on the lakeside, avoid roads. It’s smart.”

  “You think we can make it to Wahweap by noon?” I ask, the thought that by tonight I could see Kai again, could touch him, is almost too much to think about.

  “Why not?”

  “Sounds like it’s time to start thinking about how we’re going to kill the White Locust, then,” Ben says.

  I glance over at Aaron, who’s scratching at his burn scars. He’s looking at Ben, an expression on his face that’s hard to read.

  “Get in the car, Ben,” I say quietly. She complies, sliding into the back seat. Aaron climbs in next to her, and Rissa joins me in the front.

  I run my hands around the steering wheel. Press gently on the gas pedal, and the Mercury answers me like the lover she is. “Yes, baby,” I murmur.

  From the back seat, Ben shouts, “Get in, losers! We’re going to Amangiri!”

  Chapter 31

  The drive is long and hot and entirely uneventful. It seems that beyond the horrors of Knifetown and the uncanniness of Twin Arrows, the Malpais is just an uninhabitable desert wasteland. Mile after mile of flat brown earth, characterized by stretches of land where there’s nothing at all, not even an obstinate tree to break the monotony. The Mercury hums along happily, glad to stretch her legs after years in that garage, no doubt. I drive, and everyone else sleeps, except Ben, who seems determined to sing the entire catalog of some pop music group I’ve never heard of.

  “You really don’t know who Maroon 5 is?” she asks. “They’re, like, classic oldies.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  She huffs. “They were very popular right before the Big Water. My mom had their whole discography.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” she reassures me. “You’re lucky I know all their songs and can sing them for you.”

  “Lucky isn’t the word I’d choose.”

  But she doesn’t catch my sarcasm, or ignores it, and I speed through the wastelands of the apocalypse with Ben’s version of some song about what lovers do ringing in my ears.

  We make decent time, the roads not as bad as they were right outside of Lupton, but still almost impassable in places. Once we have to get out and clear what looks like intentional road debris. I stand guard, shotgun drawn while the others remove the rubble blocking our way. No one attacks us, but I can almost feel the eyes out there watching us.

  Early afternoon finds us climbing the narrow roads around the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

  “Have you ever seen it?” Rissa asks, sitting up in the passenger’s seat.

  “The Grand Canyon? No, you?”

  She nods. “A trip once with my f
amily, when my dad was still alive.” She smiles with some memory. “It was the last trip we took together before California went.”

  It had been a combination of fire, earth, and ultimately water that had taken the West Coast, the entire coast ravaged by wildfires, blackened and ruined. People had tried to flee but had been caught by a massive earthquake that sheared most of the Pacific Northwest straight off the continental shelf, and then the ocean had rushed in to finish the job. Millions gone in a series of days one hot November. By then the East Coast had been suffering through a record hurricane season and there was no help to be had. The federal government had long given up on helping anyone, the message clear that we were all on our own. And on our own, we would die.

  I was fifteen then, living with my nalí. California might as well have been Saturn. But we did miss the television stations when they all went. The Internet. Later, we would miss more than that. Much more. But for a long time Dinétah was its own bubble. Only recently had we started to see some of the effects of the Big Water in our day-to-day lives. Less choice at the trading posts, but then we’d never had much choice to begin with. Fruit was always canned and in a syrup. Vegetables were limited to what we could grow in the small backyard plot my nalí tended. Strange that our isolation made the transition to a post Big Water world easier when before I’d only ever seen it as a punishment. But now I could see what a blessing it was.

  We curve around the edge of a cliff and hit a wide-open mesa. The view is spectacular, and there, in the distance, is a place that can only be Page. It’s a city at the top of a hill, almost like some old medieval city from books. But Page is thoroughly modern. Certainly more than anything in Dinétah. Electrical lights recklessly illuminate everything, revealing every road and structure in stark detail. Page benefits from the massive hydroelectric power plants on its borders. Those plants are fueled by the Colorado River that thunders nearby. Most electricity back in Dinétah comes from gas-powered generators, since we don’t have a reservation-wide electrical grid anymore, if there had even been one to begin with. But here in Page, electricity flows like air, turning the city into twenty-four hours of continuous daylight. But the most shocking thing about the city is its color.

  “It’s green!” Rissa says, and after hours surrounded by nothing alive, it’s like finding an emerald in a trash bin.

  “Ben!” I call to the back seat. “Look at this.” Ben rouses herself from where she’s been napping against Aaron’s shoulder. She wipes drool from her cheek and leans forward over the front seat to look.

  “Whoa!” she says sleepily. “Is that grass?”

  “Acres of it,” Rissa says. “Damn. What do they do with it all?”

  “Eat it?”

  “I don’t think people eat grass,” I say. “At least, not when there’s other options.”

  We come to a fork in the road, the one on the right leading up to the city and the one on the left trailing down to . . .

  “What is that?” I ask, awed.

  “Glen Canyon Dam,” Aaron says. “Glen Canyon Dam is the second-highest concrete-arch dam in the United States.” He continues, his voice taking on the cadence of a tour guide. “Second only to Hoover Dam. Glen Canyon is seven hundred and ten feet high, a mere sixteen feet shorter than its more famous cousin. Built in 1956, it is part of one of the most extensive and complex river resource developments in the world. The dam holds more than twenty-six million acre feet of water in Lake Powell, and it has sustained the drought-stricken southwest part of the United States since its inception. It is truly a marvel of human engineering.”

  “Nice,” Ben murmurs.

  “I still got it,” he says to her with a wink.

  “That sign says Wahweap is on the other side of the dam,” I say, pointing with my lips to a green-and-white road sign that designates places and miles to those places. “Eleven miles that way. But how do we cross?”

  “We cross over the top of the dam,” Aaron explains. “There’s a road.”

  “The hell you say?” Rissa says. “Seven hundred feet in the air?”

  “Seven hundred and ten,” Ben adds unhelpfully.

  “It’s fine,” Aaron assures us. “People do it all the time. There’s even a visitors center if you want to stop.”

  “We’re not tourists, Aaron.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  We’re approaching a place where the road turns from a dusty asphalt to a dull light gray concrete. The top of the dam. There’s a gate that is used to block the entrance to the dam, but it’s open right now, a handful of people in uniforms milling about.

  We pass the gate. A woman in a brown and green uniform waves to us as we pass. I instinctively check to see if she has any weapons, but she’s unarmed. “I don’t understand,” I say. “Is that a . . . ?”

  “National Park Ranger,” Aaron offers. “They stayed on after the federal government collapsed. Called themselves the Alt-Rangers. Said they had a higher duty to the land than to the government. They still wear their uniforms. It’s sort of a calling.”

  “They’re not even armed.”

  “No one would touch them. They’re considered sacred.”

  I keep my eyes forward as we enter the dam proper. Ben oohs and aahs, craning her neck to look over the edge. Aaron provides a running commentary of facts. Only Rissa looks as tense as I do. “Hate heights,” she says when I look over at her.

  It doesn’t take long—maybe ten minutes—to cross the dam, and then we’re on the other side and winding along another dirt road, following the signs to Wahweap and Amangiri.

  As we get closer to our destination, a pall settles heavy around us. Nerves, no doubt. Each of us is wrapped up in our own thoughts about what we expect from Amangiri, none of us actually knowing what will happen once we get there.

  I can see Ben in the back seat, eyes out the window, no doubt looking at Lake Powell and thinking of another lake where she lost her uncle just a few days ago. It seems like weeks since we went up that mountainside and Hastiin died and Ben set her heart on revenge.

  Aaron’s next to her, looking out the other side of the car and absently rubbing the scars on his face, likely thinking of the White Locust too. Only I’m not sure whether he wants Gideon dead, like his seatmate does, or if he has other plans for his long-lost brother.

  And then there’s Rissa. I know we had a moment and that she says we’re friends now. What I don’t know is exactly what that means, and if our newfound friendship was weighed against whatever she has with Aaron, would it come out on top or come out wanting? If Aaron flips on us, will Rissa have my back? Ben’s back? Or will she feel some kind of loyalty to Aaron? She said she wouldn’t, but I don’t know her well enough to know if she’s lying. Or if she’s telling the truth but likely to change her mind when the shit hits the fan.

  The molted red and white cliffs of Lake Powell lead us down toward the water. Aaron starts drumming his fingers against the back of the seat. Rissa turns halfway around to lay a hand across his. He looks at her, surprised, and she gives him a smile. Wends her fingers through his. He smiles back. Ben begins singing softly to herself, a song I recognize, which Hastiin used to hum. Some tune he learned on the front lines of the Energy Wars. Something sad, a mourning song for warriors.

  And I wonder, not for first time, what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

  Chapter 32

  It’s midday when we reach Wahweap. The shore slopes down to the water, white rocks turning to a sandier mix beneath our feet. A metal dock that’s seen better days reaches out past the shallows, branching into bays, offering room to anchor at least two dozen boats. But all the bays are empty, save one. And what’s parked there isn’t particularly impressive. A flat-bottomed boat about fifty feet long, give or take. White, with some sort of black and maroon patterned design on the sides that is peeling off like old paint in the heat. A dull white railing circles the boat on both the lower and upper deck, the upper deck open to the sky. Up top are a few old folding chairs, and n
ext to one is a bright orange fishing pole, it’s red and white floater bobbing in the water below.

  “Looks abandoned,” Rissa says, joining me. She holds her hand up to shade her eyes, scanning the lakefront as if there must be more to Wahweap than this. But she’s seeing the same limited options I am.

  “Why would Nohoilpi say to come here?” I wonder, thinking of the bright modern city just a few miles behind us.

  Rissa shrugs. “These gods of yours have a strange sense of humor. I wouldn’t put it past him to do it just to mess with us.” She steps out on the dock tentatively, and the metal structure rocks under her weight.

  I follow after her, the dock swaying. It’s a little disconcerting, the way the flimsy structure floats on top of the water. If it collapses, the water is shallow enough that we could simply wade back to shore, but it’s unsettling anyway. I’ve never been on a body of water bigger than Lake Asááyi back home, and Lake Powell could swallow a hundred Lake Asááyis. I’m feeling nervous and having second thoughts about Nohoilpi’s advice. But we’re here, so I’ll see it through.

  “Let’s go introduce ourselves to whoever owns that thing,” I say. “If there’s anyone home.”

  Rissa and I move forward, Ben and Aaron trailing. The docks creaks and moans but holds together.

  “Are we supposed to knock?” Ben asks as we reach the dilapidated old boat.

  “On what? There’s no door.” Just an opening in the white railing big enough to fit through. It’s a small leap across a narrow strip of water to reach the deck, but it seems rude to invite ourselves.

  “Hello!?” I call. And for good measure, “Yá’át’ééh?!”

  A water bird squawks and flies out from beneath the edge of the dock not ten feet away. I whirl, startled, my hand automatically reaching for my gun. Rissa does the same. We watch as the bird flaps its wings, climbing into the blue sky and across the surface of the lake. I give her a tight smile. Seems I’m not the only one who’s jittery.

  “Yíi!” shouts a voice from the upper deck of the boat. “Who’s down there scaring my birds?”