Page 39 of The Salt-Black Tree
But the invader had been repelled upon the very last shore. Unintended consequences ruined many a carefully laid plan, yes—but though the elder Drozdova was weakened into mortality she was not quite extinguished.
She was not defeated yet.
Everything now depended on the tearing, pulsing, agonizing horror lodged in her vitals—and on her careful training and shaping of a child.
Once her daughter reached the salt-black tree, all could yet be made well again. Though many had struggled against Maria’s pretty, pale hands, in the end they all offered their throats to the flint knife. How could they not, when her loveliness surpassed all mortal imagining?
Old Spring’s pupils dimmed and her eyelids resealed, the machines’ quieting clamor failing to attract any mortal attention on a busy afternoon since the event passed swiftly, equanimity returned. She lay and dozed, her teeth—discolored, but still strong—worrying at the tube forced past her lips.
TRUTH, CONSEQUENCES
Rose-fingered dawn spread into gray sky an hour later. The horizon burst into full crimson-and-pink fury, clouds lingering over mesas and olive or cypress forest-smears. The desert was strangely green, not at all what she’d expected, but winter was the season of rains. Every surface held a fine patina of dust, but the light was beautiful—it drenched every facet and curve, robbing shadows of their terror. The air warmed quickly, too; Nat rolled the windows down and turned the heater off as soon as the sun had cleared the horizon’s rim.
Baby hummed southward on I-25. Any human habitation meant water, which meant clots of green far dustier than California’s. Reddish rock frowned on anything resembling a slope; Nat’s first sight of a roadrunner was a distinct letdown.
The little brown bird didn’t so much as beep-beep.
Now that she knew how fast Baby could go, she held the chariot to a comfortable—though entirely inhuman—speed. Las Nutrias, Contreras, La Joya, San Acacia—the towns clustered the eastern edge of the freeway, sometimes just a flicker before they were gone. Traffic was sporadic once they were free of Albuquerque’s predawn sprawl, and the signs for wildlife refuges, national parks, and flash-flood warnings didn’t shout. They drawled, having all the time in the world.
Elephant Butte, another sign giggled, and Nat laughed alonglike a kid. Baby peeled off at the interchange, surefoot as a stretch-galloping feline, and before Nat knew it the blue car was slowing, waxed thread slipping through the eye of a needle.Cemetery Road, the signs whispered; the town was namedTruth or Consequences.
It figured. Nat’s breathing slowed, a curious comfort folding over her. Out here, like in the Dakotas, there was enough space for everything to be on a nice neat grid, very few surprises or weird angles. Turn after turn rolled under the tires; Baby circled the town as if hunting.
Good thing the car knows where to go.Just after the thought came another laugh, bubbling up from a deep hidden wellspring. Whether the car knew, a divinity could sense, or Nat’s prosaic, mortal unconscious was coming through loud and clear was academic.
It all ended up in the same place.
On Baby’s left was a sluggish glitter—a largish creek or smallish river. A tiny skip in the car’s steady humming echoing all through Nat’s body, the warning loud and clarion-clear; she all but stood on the brake, whipping the steering wheel. Gravel crunched, a spray of roostertail dust rose, and she almost clipped a listing sign for a whitewater rafting company with the passenger-side mirror.
A wide unpaved turnout snuggled against the river’s curve, its fringes crowded with dry bushes and thorny scrub. Baby rocked to a stop facing the water; there was a chuckling collection of stones submerged in the flow. Come summer Nat could probably hop across on foot without getting wet past the shin, but now…
The Drozdova chewed her lower lip gently, staring. Despite the dust, Baby shone pristine. Even her windshield was untroubled by bug-spatter. Nat rubbed her hands together as if cold, contemplating this new puzzle.
The tugging was clear—she had to go across the water. It was equally clear that looking for a bridge wasn’t the solution.
She was a divinity, after all. Was she supposed to get out and walk on the surface tension, or…
There was nobody around, the town busy waking up and going about its mortal business. Broken beer bottles glittered fiercely, trash turned into diamonds while paper and other detritus busily melded into taupe and dusty green. It was a pretty shore nonetheless. Past a screen of thirsty, hunched olive-green bushes on the other side was another rutted dirt road, and what looked like a farm field.
And past that? Desert, rising red rock, and more dust.
The sense of direction in her bones buzzed impatiently, like manicured fingernails drumming on a gleaming-empty, mirror-surfaced desk.
Oh, what the hell.She had very little to lose at this point, frankly.Is there a god of tow trucks?
Nat slipped her boot-toe off the brake, inhaled sharply, and stamped on the gas.
Baby’s hind end sent up a roaring fan of small stones and dust; the car leapt forward, yowling like a cat in heat. There was a slight shifting sensation, a bunching and an elastic release. Twin sheets of brown water curled high on either side, sparkling with white foam at their edges, and the jolt of landing was accompanied by a wrenching right turn. Metal squealed, flexible as a feline spine, and Baby snort-chuckled.
Should have given me adifficulttask,that noise said, and Nat—sweat greasing her lower back, collecting in the hollows of her elbows and behind her knees—giggled as well, a high wild glassy sound. Power, bright as white wine, sang all through her.
Was this whatdivinitymeant?
A network of dirt roads—some larger, some smaller—veined the desert. The hills swallowed a blue car with a laughing womaninside, and traces of tender green from droplets scattered in her wake drove their roots deep.
One tiny, almost-hidden road climbed with switchbacks, goat-graceful and assured. A dry rasping buzz on either side penetrated engine-hum and the crunch of tires; Nat barely had to keep her fingertips on the wheel. Finally, Baby crested the hilltop at an angle and turned again, finding an almost-driveway passing through a break in ubiquitous Western three-strand barbwire fence stretching between weathered gray posts. The sunlight turned sharper, noon instead of dawn, and though the shadows were finely edged they were not hungry.
Not here.
