It was hours before sunrise, and hours after moonset, and the sky was a black scrim covered with more stars than the mind could imagine counting. The milky way arced overhead, and the hunter followed the great bear on either side of that great swath of luminous river. The high desert spread out under the sky, silent and sleeping, uninterrupted by crickets, coyotes or even the sursurrations of a pre-dawn breeze in the sage. It was dark enough that there were no shadows, although Sherman Blackstone saw shades aplenty.

Sherman was strongly tempted to turn and walk into the darkness. He'd arrived late yesterday, not knowing why he'd felt the need to travel but feeling it nonetheless. The folk he'd encountered upon arriving here were the first living humans he'd seen in months, and the first he'd spoken to in longer still.

The other participants in this ritual were as taciturn as Sherman had been. They knew where Sherman had been and what he'd been doing just by looking at him, just as he knew their stories. It was there for all to see if they only looked, as clear to them as the history of this sweat lodge. Sherman could practically see them building it two days ago. Not more than a dozen sentences had been exchanged among them but Sherman knew they were all here for the same reason. Powerful forces were stirring in the world. Events were already in motion that would need to be dealt with. It didn't require the Sight to see who would be tasked with it. Sherman looked to the west. He could go.

Sherman stood outside the small sweat lodge, watching the steam rise off of his body as he breathed in the air, bitingly cold and bone dry after the searing wetness of the lodge. He left a high-noon shadow on the ground in drops of his sweat, gave thanks to the world for making room for him in it, turned and duck walked back into the wiki-up.

Around the glowing hot rocks, Henry Taliman sat with other members of the Navajo tribal business council. This was not the usual venue for these men to meet to do business, and Sherman was not the usual person for them to do business with. Among the business council there also sat Chief Diablo, crossed over for nearly fifty years, and Chief Chato, gone barely five years since a car crash took the man who had fought by Geronimo's side. The business council paid no attention to the ghosts, who sneered at the puffed up faux-civilization that some of them affected even in a sweat lodge.

Henry was an old man, and his barrel chest had settled gently into a pot belly over the years. He sat with his long grey hair hanging shaggily down around his face, as craggy and hard as the table lands. "Sherman, we have to send a man to work with the white government."

"Yeah," Sherman said slowly. "Yeah, I figured."

In the silence that followed, someone ladled another helping of water onto the thirsty rocks, and in the steam that spit skyward from them, Sherman could see Geronimo, Goyathlay himself, his eyes blazing with unrepentent fury and disapproval. When the steam cleared, there was another Apache there, glowing and sitting placidly in the impossibly crowded little hut. He wore the beads that marked him as a member of the Kewevkapaya, and he smiled broadly and lifted his chin to the shaman. It was rare for an Apache to show such emotion in a setting as grave as a sweat lodge.

"We have picked you," Henry added with a flat sigh. No one living there considered this an honor.

"Lucky me," Sherman said.

An old man chuckled in the dark, a small percussion of grunts that carried black humor with it. The great spirit did as it would, and for an Apache to call himself lucky when the Navajo nation was the only one the United States recognized anywhere close to fully carried the blackest humor with it. Could anyone deny he was lucky? The spirits had chosen him as their mortal contact, his belly was full and his feet had moccasins to carry them.

Henry continued, his voice rumbling low and soft in the red glow of the hot little room. It wasn't the monotone of the movie Indian, but it was the wild ululation of the indo-european languages, either. There was not an economy in the language, plenty of syllables, plenty of images, but an economy of energy in the words and sounds themselves, as if each noise was precious enough to be let out only after some deliberation. "In three days find the Federal Agent at the Sheriff's office in Phoenix. They say they will be expecting you."

Sherman nodded slightly. Phoenix. A long walk from here, but easily achievable in three days. If he started now. "Guess I'd best get moving, then," Sherman said. He hesitated for a moment, waiting to see what--if anything--more the council had to tell him.

When it as clear that nothing more would be forthcoming, Sherman slipped out of the sweat lodge, back into the relative frigidity of the night air. He had little in the way of possessions. What little there was awaited him not far away. He'd return to his camp site, collect his gear and be off.

Sherman was curious to see whom the 'Great White Father' would send to work with him.

Outside the dim redness of the tent, the blue darkness of the desert night seemed almost bright by comparison. Sherman had strode no more than a handful of paces away when he felt the quiet presence of a spirit at his side. The smiling Kewevkapaya was there, walking tracklessly along, shifting no sand under his feet, filling no space, occupying the spiritual space that Sherman touched and saw and knew himself to be a part of. He was luminous as the moon, but he cast no shadow.

"When the time is right, tell him to dig ten paces west of the well."

"Ten paces west of the well," Sherman repeated, and nodded. He had no idea for whom the message was intended, but that didn't trouble him. He'd know when the time came. He walked silently back to his camp site and gathered his few possessions, then reduced the camp site. When he was done, there was little sign that it had ever existed.

Kewevkapaya was no longer present. Sherman took a drink from his water skin. He turned toward Phoenix and began trotting. He could sustain that pace all night, sleeping by day to escape the desert heat. In three days he'd be in Phoenix. He'd know the answer to at least one question, but there were sure to be more new questions than answers.