Thief of Souls (33 page)

. . . And the mighty Colorado River was flowing backward.

W
INDS IN THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE HAD QUICKLY SHREDDED
Michael's fierce storm into wispy threads of ice vapor. By noon, thousands more had gathered around the Nevada and Arizona sides of Black Canyon, because, where Hoover Dam once stood, the Colorado River Backwash was its most impressive. At that point, the waters gushed back into Lake Mead, at a steep upward slope—a river rapids flowing against the pull of gravity.

The white water running back into the canyon that had been Lake Mead was filled with the bodies of those chosen followers—but the mourning for the dead was overcome by the sight of the backwash.

It was an image that burned itself into the world's collective consciousness, because it was so wholly inconceivable, no one could wrap their mind around it. Rational thought meant nothing in the face of this wonder, and people knew that from this day forth, nothing they thought or believed could remain the same. Like a train hurled from its track, day-to-day life ground to a screeching halt, as alliances began to shift, and people began believing in the divinity of the martyred Dillon Cole.

They had no way of knowing that he was still alive.

Even when he washed up in the rapids where the dam had stood, he appeared to be just another victim lifelessly pulled along
with the flow. No one noticed the small lily pad of calm that protected him, as he surged semi-conscious up the Colorado River.

D
REW
C
AMDEN HAD STUMBLED
away from the canyon before the waters reversed. His shoulder was badly swollen, the pain making him hobble like Quasimodo as he crossed the desert back to the campsite. He wasn't sure what he expected to find there, but he didn't know where else to go. Yellow police lines were spread like cobwebs, blocking everything off, and he burst through one like a racer at a finish line. The campsite was deserted except for the police.

“My God, it's another one!” one of the cops shouted. “Don't let this one get away.” They were on him in an instant, hurling questions.

“Dam . . . broke,” Drew muttered. “Friends died. Two of them.” The cops looked at each other.

“It was a lot more than two, kid,” one cop said. Drew stared at him blankly.

“Forget it,” the cop told him, “it's not your problem.” There were paramedics around him now. They secured him to a backboard, and packed his shoulder with ice.

“Don't worry,” one of them said. “You'll be fine. The doctors'll patch you up, and have you home in no time.”

Home.
It was a place Drew hadn't the luxury of considering for quite some time. Between the alternating current of his own personality, and the events he had been a part of, Newport Beach seemed far, far away. In a way, he had been caught up in Michael's tornado all this time, hadn't he? From the moment the sharks leapt up at the beach, he was drawn up in a current that left him at the mercy of the winds. He had been destroyed, reborn, shredded, and reconstructed, and now
he had been spat back out again.

When he got home, he would have much to tell people: things about the Shards, and about himself as well; things that needed to be said.

As he lay there, he heard voices around him and snippets of conversations talking of even stranger events at the river.

“. . . damnedest thing . . .” “. . . it never hit Laughlin . . .” “. . . whole thing flowing backward . . .”

He heard radios reporting on it. Police had crowded onto one of the buses, watching it on TV. “That can't be what it looks like . . . .”

It's not over,
thought Drew—but whatever happened now, he instinctively sensed that he was not a part of it anymore. He was not one of the Shards—and although he had envied Michael at first, he now realized there was nothing to envy about that kind of power in this kind of world. Tears filled his eyes, and one of the paramedics gave him a shot of morphine for the pain.

As they carried him toward a waiting helicopter, he began to struggle against his bonds, trying to force a single thought out before the morphine took effect. “Okoya . . .” he said weakly, his thoughts slurring. “Bad. Dangerous. Must find . . .”

A paramedic looked to his partner. “The kid's ranting.”

“Who isn't today?” his partner said.

The paramedics ignored him as they carried him to the helicopter and past a bus, where the frayed ends of nylon cords dangled limply from the mirrors and bumper.

L
IFE BEGAN AT THE
C
ONFLUENCE
. A
T LEAST THAT WAS THE
belief of many Southwest tribes. It was the place where the Colorado and Little Colorado merged into a single river. It was a place of magic. A place of powerful spirits, both good and evil.

Radio Joe—second-degree burns on his hands and part of his face from the real flames of the fake volcano—had taken a car, sold it for a horse, took a six-hour trek down into the Grand Canyon, and waited at the Confluence for the world to end. When the river began its backward flow, he knew the time was near.

He watched as body after body drifted by in the current, and he awaited the coming of a god, or a demon.

A
T
T
WILIGHT, AS
R
ADIO
Joe cooked himself a hot meal over an open fire, he saw a raft approaching him on the river. He thought he recognized the raft's single occupant—but wasn't certain until the raft had been beached and the visitor's face, bruised and swollen, was lit by the flames. It almost looked surprised when it saw the old man, but hid it quickly.

“You've abused their body,” Radio Joe told the dark Quíkadi; the thief of souls. “I would think a creature of your power would have kept it in better shape. Unless you've met your match.”

“Don't anger me, old man.”

Radio Joe reached into his pot and offered a helping of stewed rabbit.

“I don't need your food,” it said.

“Then what do you need?”

“I'm looking for the one who changed the course of the river,” said the thief of souls.

“And you think it was me?”

Then the thief leaned closer into the fire, until beads of sweat appeared on its bruised face—still the perfect synthesis of Lara and Jara. “I think you have eyes that see more than most. Tell me what you've seen on the river.”

Radio Joe gnawed his meat. “I've seen bodies carried around the bend, deeper into the canyon. I've seen fish swimming in perfect schools. I've seen the holes in my shoes close as I stood in the water.”

The thief waited for more, but Radio Joe offered nothing further.

“I know he's nearby,” said the thief. “I think you know more than you say.”

“And if I do?”

“If you don't tell me all you know, I'll do what I should have done to begin with. I'll leave you worse than dead.”

“And what about Lara and Jara?” demanded the old man. “Are they worse than dead? Did you devour their souls?”

“They sleep,” said the thief. “They merged into one, and now they sleep.”

Radio Joe nodded. If it hadn't destroyed the twins, then it spared them for a reason. But perhaps the thing didn't need them anymore. It decided to gamble.

“Free their spirits, and I'll tell you what I know.”

The thief of souls was taken aback. Its face hardened, and for a moment Radio Joe thought he was done for. But then the thief grinned. It gave its head a shake, flicking a long mane of hair from its eyes—and as it did, Radio Joe felt the soul of the twins pass clear through him.

And behind him, his horse began to whinny and buck.

“There,” said the thief. “I've freed them.” Its gaze intensified. “Now tell me what you saw.”

“I saw him float past here, two hours ago,” said Radio Joe. “The water bore him like a pillow as he slept, refusing to let him drown.”

The thief turned its eyes to the two rivers, tracing the larger one's winding path. But the hour was late, and the outline of the river disappeared into shadows as pitch-dark as the new moon.

“The Colorado travels north a ways, then winds back to the south,” Radio Joe told him. “Camp in the shadow of High Pebble.” He indicated a pillar of darkening red stone in the distance. “You'll see him at dawn.”

The thief wasted no time with thank-yous. He slipped back into the shadows, and disappeared.

When the thief was gone, Radio Joe left the fire, his kettle of stew in hand. His horse was tied to a rock, but tried desperately to pull itself free, with a spirit the young gelding hadn't shown before. It looked apprehensive and angry as Radio Joe approached, but it calmed as he brushed its mane.

“You're free from it now,” he told the spirit of the twins. Then, taking out his knife, he cut the horse loose from its bridle. Instantly it took off into the canyon. Radio Joe listened until the hoofbeats were overwhelmed by crickets, then he turned and headed with his bucket of rabbit stew toward the small cave in the canyon wall behind him.

“I
HOPE YOU LIKE
rabbit.”

Dillon was awakened by a gruff voice, and reached up to peel back the blanket that covered him. His memory was foggy, but he vaguely remembered being pulled from the
river by the old man. The muscles in Dillon's arms and legs had been knots of hard rubber, and his jaw had locked from chattering. The old man had carried him to this cave, rubbed warmth into his arms and legs, and covered him with a blanket. It was the last thing Dillon remembered before slipping from consciousness.

Now his muscles felt looser, and his body felt warm. Dillon had never tasted rabbit before, but right now, it smelled awfully good to him. The old man served Dillon the stew in a cracked bowl, but the crack healed quickly enough . . . and hadn't the blanket that covered him once been dilapidated? Even in this desolate cave, he could not escape his aura of mending anymore than he could escape his own shadow.

Dillon ate with his fingers, trying to put those thoughts aside.

“You should know that I don't have much luck with hermits,” Dillon said.

The old man shrugged. “I'm not a hermit, I'm an electrician.”

It was as the old man turned that Dillon had a moment of déjà vu. He had seen this face before. “Do I know you?”

The old man hesitated before answering. Then he said, “People call me Radio Joe.”

Dillon's hand began to shake, and he put down the bowl, as he realized the significance of the name. “The Shiprock Slayer.”

Radio Joe smiled. “I'd be lying if I said I'd been called worse things.” He picked up Dillon's bowl, studying where the crack had healed. “But the task was beyond me. You completed what I began.”

He held out the bowl to Dillon, and Dillon took it. “What are you?” Radio Joe asked.

Dillon considered the question. “Damned if I know,” he said, finally. Truthfully. For at that moment, he didn't know. He couldn't say if he was good or evil; a hero or destroyer; a gift to this world, or its greatest curse.

“Does the river still run backward?” Dillon asked.

The old man nodded, and Dillon was not surprised; it had only been a matter of time until his powers grew too strong for his will to control.

“I hear talk of a river up north,” Radio Joe told him, “that also flows in from the sea. Its waters are healing, and to drink of it means to cheat death.”

Dillon closed his eyes. “The Columbia River.” Did every place he tread bear the indelible print of his influence now? And would the rivers flow to the sea once more if he were dead? He didn't know. He didn't even know if he
could
die—and that thought added a new level to the misery, because it meant he didn't even have control over his own existence.

How strange, he thought—to seek control over everything, and find himself in control of nothing at all. Powerless, in his own power.

Radio Joe watched Dillon eat, and ladled him a second helping. Only after he finished did he offer Dillon the unpleasant news.

“It came looking for you,” Radio Joe told him. Dillon felt his world-weariness settle more heavily on his shoulders. Dillon knew Okoya would not rest as long as Dillon was alive.

“Do you know how to destroy it?” Dillon asked.

Radio Joe only picked through the bones in his own bowl. “This rabbit,” he began, “not much left of it now. I suppose if it still lived, it would want to know how to destroy me. To a rabbit, we are the evil ones. But by what means can a rabbit destroy us?” He dropped the bones into the sand. “It must fail,
because what we are, and what we know, are far beyond this poor rabbit's ability to ever understand.”

Dillon felt his stomach grumble. It was as if he could hear the spirit of the rabbit growling in his gut. He swallowed hard to keep his meal down, and wondered if a vegetarian lifestyle was in his future. “I can't destroy it,” Dillon realized.

“If you don't understand its life, how can you bring about its death?” The old Indian took Dillon's bowl, turning it face-down over the bones of the rabbit. “Maybe it's best to let it be. Leave it to do what it does, and stay out of its path, forever. Because without someone like you to do its bidding, it could never have the power it desires. It could never devour the whole world.”

Dillon stood. His knees still felt weak, but he knew his strength was coming back. He walked out of the cave and turned up his eyes to the clear night sky. A trillion stars. The living eyes of the universe staring down on him.

Yes, he could run from Okoya, like a frightened rabbit running from the hunter . . . but if he did, those trillion eyes of heaven would be there in accusation, every night of his life. He had often thought about it, but now beneath that Grand Canyon sky, he truly began to wonder whether his life was an accident brought on by the sudden death of a distant star, or was there more to it than that? Did his existence serve some purpose he had yet to learn? If so, it would explain why the world seemed so reluctant to let him die. Or to run.