Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(17)

He sighs dramatically.

“You’ll get over it.”

“Doubtful.” He rubs at his mouth, as if trying to remember the taste on his lips. “So your truck runs on moonshine.”

“Runs on whatever fuel I can manage.”

“I thought Dinétah had plenty of fossil fuel.”

“That’s the rumor. But the Tribal Council controls the gasoline, and it sells better in places like New Denver and the EMK, and other places that were decimated by the Energy Wars. Worth more there than around here. So they ship it out to people who are willing to pay.”

“What’s the EMK?”

“Exalted Mormon Kingdom. You never heard of it? It’s pretty much everything west of New Denver, and most of what’s left of Arizona that’s not Dinétah. I hear it’s something to see.”

“The EMK?”

“Well, that, but I meant Lake Powell, where the refineries are. Just two hundred miles west near the western edge of the Wall. They say the refineries run day and night and tribal officials live like kings. You would think that after the Energy Wars maybe they’d do something different, you know? Spread it around to the people. Build a damn solar panel.”

“Greed is universal,” Kai says. His face is thoughtful, his eyes a little distant. “In the Burque we have water barons that are like that. They control everything. Deep wells and waterworks like you’ve never seen. Catchments and evaporators up in the mountains. Water making them wealthy like Renaissance princes.” He pushes his aviators up off his face, squints into the sun. “Seems anywhere there’s a natural resource, there’s someone willing to hoard it for themselves to make more money than they can spend.”

I think of the Protectors, the people who fought the multinationals in the Energy Wars and lost. Until Earth herself stepped in and drowned them all regardless of personal politics.

“Water is life,” I say.

“And you can’t drink oil,” he replies, the old Protector slogan we all learned as kids. But something in his voice sounds off, and for a second his face clouds over and his eyes flash bright and almost metallic. It’s startling, and it tweaks my monster instincts. But before I can process why, he slaps the side of my truck, making me jump. “I’m surprised this truck can still run at all. How old is this thing?”

I shake off the strangeness, file it away to ask him about later. “Do not knock my truck or you can walk right now. She’s a classic.” And she is. A 1972 Chevy 4x4 pickup truck, cherry red and chromed out like the beauty queen she is. I’ve brought her back from the dead more than once, and she’s never let me down. I pat the tailgate affectionately and set the empty jug in the back.

“Kind of a relic, isn’t it?” he asks.

“She’s Detroit steel. She’ll outlast any car made in the last fifty years. All a bunch of fiberglass and plastic.”

He grins, measuring me up. “Bit of a gearhead?”

“I know a few things,” I admit. “If you can’t fix your own car on the rez, you’re going to do a lot of walking.”

“Didn’t mean anything,” he protests, hands raised. “Just an observation.”

“Yeah, well, observe from the passenger’s seat. We need to go.” I take in the position of the sun, the shrinking shadows. “We’ve got maybe another hour of driving before we’ve got to break.”

“Break? It’s not even noon.”

“Right. This switchback we’re on cuts through at Twin Lakes. We can stop there. It’ll be noon by then, and then we’re back on the road around three o’clock. Too hot otherwise, and if she overheats, we’re walking.”

“I thought you said your truck was some kind of supermachine.”

“No, I said she was a classic, and that means you treat her with respect. Once you get past Twin Lakes, the road’s pretty much a suggestion up until Nahodishgish. Overheating’s bad, but one big pothole and the axle’s toast. Any idea how hard it is to replace the axle on a 1972 Chevy these days?”

“I’m losing some faith here.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you back to Tah’s in one piece.” I open the driver’s side door and climb in. Kai gets in on the passenger’s side. “Assuming nothing goes wrong.”

“We’re not driving when it’s hot. We’re not driving the bad roads in the dark. What could go wrong?”

I grin big when I start the engine, but my eyes involuntarily cut to the place where we saw the coyote. “Well, there’s always the monsters.”



We stop a little after noon like I said, just past Twin Lakes. There are, of course, no lakes here. Whatever water was ever here dried up long ago.

Kai sits cross-legged in a dusty patch of earth in the relative shade of a cliff overhang. He’s got his tie thrown over one shoulder, sunglasses firmly back in place, and he’s chewing on a piece of jerky Tah was generous enough to pack for us. We’re sharing a canteen, taking measured sips when we need to, enough to keep our mouths moist. If it was hot before, it’s blistering now. More than a few minutes and it feels like your skin starts to burn, like you can feel the cells frying bright red, even our naturally dark skin offering little protection in a sun this fierce. But like they always say about the high desert, it’s a dry heat. Unbearable in direct sunlight, but a good twenty degrees cooler in the shade. So I’ve parked the truck up as close to the shady overhang as I could get, draped a blanket over the lee side to block any sudden gusts of dust-filled air, and Kai and I are sharing lunch.