Department 19: The Rising (35 page)

The man who was calling himself Robert Smith stopped for a moment, swaying in the heat of the pounding desert sun. Dizziness had suddenly come over him, but the feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived. He took a long, slow drink from the water bottle on his belt, wiped his brow and continued up the steep slope of the mesa.

The brown dirt slid beneath his feet as he climbed, rattling away behind him with a soft sound like running water. Tall grasses sprouted from the dry ground in tight clumps, their leaves brown and cracked like ancient skin, and he picked his way cautiously between them, assessing the placement of each foot, allowing his body weight to settle before moving again. Slowly, carefully, he made his way up the last of the slope, and crested the ridge.

Before him, standing silently at the edge of the flat top of the mesa, was one of the oldest inhabited settlements on earth, a Hopi village almost a thousand years old.

Old Oraibi. This is where I’ll find answers.

Smith had paid a pilot instructor in Salt Lake City to fly him into Polacca Airport, a barren strip of asphalt in the middle of the Hopi reservation, flanked by a single row of trailers. From there he had hiked up on to Route 264 and begun walking west, hoisting a thumb at every passing car and truck. After an hour or so, he got lucky; a college student, heading home for the weekend from the University of Arizona in Tucson, pulled his battered, dusty pick-up truck over to the side of the road and shoved open the passenger door. Smith ran up and climbed in, thanking the student as he settled into the worn seat.

“No problem,” replied the kid. “What’s your name, friend?”

“Smith. Robert Smith.”

“Good to meet you, man. I’m John. John Chua.”

“What does that mean?” asked Smith.

“What, John?” replied the kid, smiling at his passenger.

Smith laughed. “Chua. What does Chua mean?”

“It means snake,” answered the kid, and without warning, a chill surged up Smith’s spine. It was fleeting, less than a second, but John Chua saw it, and frowned momentarily.

“So where are you heading?” he asked. His voice had lost a touch of its warmth, and Smith realised that the kid was starting to regret picking him up.

“Not far,” he replied. “Old Oraibi.”

A tiny wave of relief flickered across John Chua’s face.

“Cool,” he said. “I’m going to Kykotsmovi. Oraibi’s only a couple of miles further on, on third mesa. Should only take you half an hour to hike up there.”

Smith settled into his seat, and watched the barren rock and sand of the desert as it flew past his window.

“That sounds good,” he said.

John Chua had been telling him the truth. It had only taken him thirty minutes to hike across the dusty, green-brown plain that lay between Kykotsmovi village and the bottom of the slope that led up on to third mesa. But it had taken him another forty to circle around to the south-west, and pick his way up the treacherous surface to the point where he now stood, atop the mesa’s ridge. He had not wanted to follow the highway up to the main entrance of the village; it felt exposed, and obvious. Part of it was experience, and part of it was overcaution, but the upshot was simple: Smith did not want to be seen before he chose to be.

Slowly, he made his way to the back of the row of buildings standing before him. The village was arranged in uneven rows. To the north, closest to the road, stood modern houses of concrete and sheet metal in varying states of disrepair. Pick-up trucks stood outside one or two, beside propane tanks and overflowing trash cans. He could hear the scurrying of rats and smell the caustic, bitter scent of crystal meth on the warm air. The place was thick with deprivation, and desperation.

The village had once been a series of stepped plateaus, the entrances to the houses raised two and a half metres above the surface of the mesa, with the carved wooden ladders that provided access leaning against the stone walls. Most of the original settlement was gone, beaten and battered by the passage of the centuries, but to the south, towards the edge of the mesa, beyond the sign telling tourists to go no further, stood what was left. Smith could see the broken spire of one of the oldest churches in America looming from beyond the rise to the south, and slowly headed towards it.

He didn’t know why, not exactly; the vision that had compelled him to come to this ancient place had not dealt in specifics. Smith
crept along the crumbling stone wall, past the sign, over the rise at the edge of the mesa, and then stopped dead.

A man was standing in the dust, staring directly at him.

He was old, his face lined and weathered, his skin the colour and consistency of leather, dried and tanned by the relentless desert sun. He was clad in traditional Hopi dress: a multicoloured breechclout that hung just above his knees and deerskin moccasins to protect his feet. His hair was bound into a Hömsoma, a tight figure-of-eight bun, and he wore a cloth band around his forehead. He was staring at Smith, a gentle smile on his face.

Smith stepped away from the wall, clearing his range of movement; his arms swung loosely at his sides, and he rolled forward on to the balls of his feet, ready for any eventuality. Then he regarded the man with a neutral expression, and asked him who he was.

For a long moment, the old man did not reply, then his smile widened, displaying a broken mountain range of chipped and yellowing teeth, and he spoke.

“I am Tocho. You are welcome here, traveller.”

Smith took a step towards the ancient Hopi man.

“Thank you,” he replied, carefully. “I am Robert Smith.”

The old man laughed. “That is not your name.”

Smith felt a tremor of panic rumble through him. He was floundering, taken aback by the presence of this ancient figure, who had caught him completely off guard, who seemed unsurprised to see him and who somehow knew that the name he had given was false.

How does he know that? Who the hell is this man?

“That’s right,” Smith replied, refusing to back down. “That’s not my real name.”

The old man regarded him closely. “A man who is lying to himself will find no truth here,” he said.

“I’m not lying to myself,” replied Smith. “I’m lying to you.”

The Hopi elder laughed again, a short sound, like a bark, that echoed through the stone and dust of the settlement.

“That is fair,” he replied, and walked towards Smith, his moccasin-clad feet silent on the parched ground of the mesa.

Smith did not retreat, but he shifted his weight away from the approaching man, ready to run if it became necessary to do so. But as Tocho approached, his dark eyes sparkling in their deep, lidded sockets, his lined face breaking into a wide smile, Smith realised that he had nothing to fear from the man, who extended a hand as he came to a halt before him. Smith took it, cautiously, and then felt his arm almost wrenched from his shoulder as the old man pumped it vigorously up and down, his grip like a vice. When he released Smith’s hand, he clapped him hard on the back, and turned him towards the western edge of third mesa.

“Come,” said Tocho. “What you are looking for is this way.”

The two men walked quickly through the remnants of Old Oraibi. As they passed the crumbling church on their right, Tocho asked Smith why he had come.

He considered telling the old man the truth – that a raving, clawing lunatic on the Lower East Side of New York, his body covered in occult tattoos and self-inflicted scars, had spoken to him in his father’s voice and told him to – but decided against it, even though there was something about the old man that made him want to trust him.

“I can’t tell you that,” Smith replied. “I’m sorry.”

Tocho nodded, then, as they cleared the last of the fallen stone
walls and moved towards the ridge that marked the edge of the mesa’s flat top, spoke again.

“Why are you hiding your name?” he asked. “A man’s name has power. To deny it is to sacrifice that power.”

“I can’t tell you why,” replied Smith. “It wouldn’t be safe.”

“No harm will come to you here,” replied Tocho.

“It’s not my safety I’m thinking about.”

The words hung in the air, barbed and unsettling. Tocho stopped, and stared closely at Smith, who forced himself to remain still under the ancient man’s steely gaze. Then abruptly, Tocho began to walk forward again, and Smith fell in beside him.

“I do not believe that you are an evil man,” said Tocho, softly. “Although I believe that you have done evil things. Am I right?”

“You are,” replied Smith. “You see a lot. You weren’t surprised to see me today, were you?”

Tocho smiled. “I was given warning of your arrival.”

This time it was Smith who stopped. He reached out and grabbed the old man’s arm, and turned him so they were face to face.

“By who?” he asked. “If there are people watching me, then I need to know. Now.”

Tocho glanced down at the hand gripping his arm, and Smith removed it. He had gripped the old man’s flesh so tightly that four fingermarks stood out, bright white on the dark skin, but the old man had not even grimaced.

“Spider Grandmother told me you were coming,” he said, eventually. “She told me I was to help you, that you were a traveller in need of direction.”

“Spider Grandmother?” asked Smith. “Who the hell is she?”

“She is the messenger,” replied Tocho. “The link between my people and Tawa, the Creator, who made the first world out of
Tokpella, the Endless Space. She speaks to us, and we listen. She bids us, and we do as we are told. Do you understand?”

“No,” replied Smith, and smiled. “Not in the slightest.”

Tocho returned his smile. “It doesn’t matter. I do.”

The old man stepped forward again, and Smith followed him. As they approached the edge of the mesa top, Smith saw a plume of smoke rising into the sky. Then, as they crested the ridge and looked down the steep desert landscape, he saw where they were headed.

Dug into a small plateau on the steep ridge was a sweat lodge.

The hut was small, and had been sunk at least half a metre into the dry ground. It was low and roughly rectangular in shape, made of animal hides tied tightly across a wooden frame. Beside it, a fire had been built in a circular depression, and placed in the middle of the flames were a number of flat, round stones. Heat was shimmering from them, distorting the idling column of smoke into a twisting, pulsing thing that appeared to be alive.

“Follow me,” said Tocho, starting down the slope. Despite his obvious old age, the Hopi elder moved quickly down the side of the mesa, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, and Smith struggled to keep up with him. The ground moved beneath his feet, his arms wheeling at shoulder-height as he fought to keep his balance. He managed not to fall, though, and skidded to a halt beside Tocho, who was staring into the fire.

“Jesus,” Smith said, out of breath. “That was crazy. I nearly broke my neck.”

Tocho looked at him. “But you didn’t,” he replied. “Go inside and sit down. I’ll follow you in a moment.”

The old man turned his gaze to the fire and the arrangement of stones that lay in the middle of it, so Smith did as he was told.
He pulled open the loose flap of hide that passed for the lodge’s door, stooped down and climbed inside.

The heat was incredible.

Desert sun had beaten down on the lodge since dawn, twelve hours earlier, and sweat immediately burst from Smith’s pores, soaking his shirt and running freely down his forehead. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, looking around the small hut. A pit had been dug in the middle of the structure, and there were two flat areas, one either side of the pit. Smith clambered across the central depression, then sat down on the hard, burning ground. There wasn’t enough room for him to do anything other than sit upright, so he crossed his legs beneath him, and waited for Tocho to appear.

He didn’t wait long. After less than a minute, the door twitched open and the old man appeared, clutching a large bottle of water in one hand and a leather harness in the other. As soon as the flap fluttered shut behind him, Tocho lowered the leather harness into the pit in the middle of the hut, and shook it open. The flat stones, which had been cooking in the fire until they were close to white-hot, fell to the earth and the temperature inside the lodge exploded, a wall of scalding, expanding heat flooding the structure, so hot and overpowering that Smith’s first instinct was that he had to get out, that he must get out, that he would die in here if he didn’t. Tocho saw the panic in the stranger’s eyes, and spoke to him, his voice low and soft.

“Let it pass,” he said. “Let the heat fill you and move on. Let it pass.”

The air was so hot that it burned Smith’s nose and mouth as he inhaled, so he held his breath.

“Small breaths,” urged Tocho. “Focus. Small breaths.”

Smith’s eyes were watering in the heat, his head pounding, but he did as he was told. He took a tiny breath in through his nose, and let it out of his mouth. Then he took another, and another, and as the first blast of heat began to subside, he opened his lungs and filled them again. The sweat still poured across him, his head still swam, but he realised he could bear it.

“I’m OK,” he gasped. “I’m OK.”

Tocho nodded, then handed him the bottle of water, taking care not to reach over the pit of stones. Smith took it, his hand slick and trembling, and wrenched the cap off. He raised it towards his mouth, and a bitter scent stung his nostrils. He paused.

“Mescaline?” he asked. “I thought this was a purification ritual?”

Tocho grinned at him. “I don’t believe you’re looking for purity.”

Smith considered for a moment, then tipped the bottle and took a long swallow. The water diluted the bitter taste of the peyote extract, but it still crawled across his tongue like desert sand, leaving him with a feeling of nausea as he focused again on his breathing, and settled into the heat.

“Are you ready?” asked Tocho. Smith nodded, and the ancient Hopi took a small flask from his breechclout and tipped the contents on to the stones. Sandalwood oil fizzed and sizzled on them, the air thickening with renewed heat and pungent, sickly incense.