Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(9)

“Hmm?”

I shake my head. “Never mind.” I know he’ll only tell me when he’s ready and maybe it’s none of my business anyway. “I brought you something,” I say.

He grunts. “I can smell it.”

“Sorry.”

“Monster hunt?”

“Yeah. Where do you want it?”

He points with a twist of his lips to the kitchen table. “Over there.”

“You do not want this on your table. Trust me.”

He looks around. “By the door, then. And wóshd’ . . . come in, come in. I’ve got something special. A treat!”

I dump the head by the door and prop my gun up next to it. “So, what’s this ‘treat’?” I ask as I make my way clockwise around the hogan.

“Gohwééh!” He grins impishly, his deep brown face lighting up as he holds up a tin of the most beautiful stuff on earth. Coffee.

“And where did you get that?” I sound a little awestruck. Coffee is expensive, and hard to come by. Luckily, it grows at high elevations. Most places over 4,500 feet survived the Big Water pretty much intact, but that doesn’t mean the infrastructure needed to move the precious bean made it through unscathed. I’ve heard tales of good coffee, the sweet Ethiopians and the earthy Indonesians served at special stores made just for drinking coffee, but all those are long gone, along with access to the exotic countries they came from. Coffee comes up on mountain passes from Aztlán now, if it comes at all.

A few minutes later water is boiling in a pot on the stove. Tah pours a couple of heaping spoonfuls of grounds directly into the pot. It’s a generous portion to share with me. The aroma hits my senses immediately and I almost swoon. I can’t remember the last time I had coffee. Truth is, most days I make do with a mug of the Navajo tea that grows wild in my yard. When he offers me a tin cup full of the thick black liquid, I don’t wait for it to cool before I take a sip. It scalds, but in the best way.

Tah has another pot on the stove, and he scoops two oversize portions of tóschíín out of it and into bowls. The mush is thick and gelatinous and holds the spoon upright when he stabs it through the middle. I reach for the spoon, but he stops my hand.

“Wait, wait!” Giggling and doing a preposterous little jig, he reaches into a kitchen cabinet and pulls out another surprise. Sugar. I haven’t seen sugar in years. Sage honey, sure, but the good old cane sugar of pre–Big Water days? I stare, mouth open.

He laughs. “You’re catching flies, Maggie,” he warns me with a happy grin. “You want the sugar in your coffee, too?”

Do I? I don’t know. I can’t remember what coffee with sugar tastes like. “Just the mush,” I say. I decide to play it safe. The coffee’s so good, and I’ll be pissed if sugar ruins it.

He dumps a big spoonful of sugar in the blue cornmeal and I stir it up and eat. The sugar bursts across my tongue so sweet it makes my teeth hurt, a perfect complement to the nutty taste of the corn. It is wonderful.

“Where did you get all this?”

“It was a present.”

“That’s some present. Who’s the friend?”

“Not a friend. A relative. My grandson.”

Ah, the mysterious house guest.

“He’s here from the Burque.” He pronounces it “Boour-kay,” with a long rolling u. I know the place. A city a hundred miles east of the Wall. It was the city of Albuquerque before the riots, but now it’s only what’s left of it. Partial city, partial name. Seems fair. I hear it’s a bad place. Rough country plagued by race wars and water barons. Massive refugee problems.

I stick another spoonful in my mouth. Sip my coffee and then we both dig in to breakfast. The only sound is our spoons scraping against the sides of the bowls and the occasional slurps from our mugs. For the first time in a long time, I feel myself relax. The hogan is cozy and familiar, and the coffee warm and earthy. For a moment, I forget about monsters and dead girls and lonely trailers, and everything is perfect.

“So, you talk to Neizghání?” Tah asks.

The perfect shatters. I put down my spoon, my appetite gone. “Neizghání left. Don’t you remember?”

Tah sniffs. “So stubborn. Both of you. I thought maybe he’d come back by now.”

The sugar and caffeine have hit my bloodstream too fast, making my hands shake. I wrap them around my mug and study the table where we sit. Stare at the cheap Formica peeling at the edges and try to think of what to say. Nothing profound comes to mind, so I stick to the facts. “It’s been almost a year, Tah. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Not coming back?” He makes a noise in his throat that sounds like disbelief. “I can’t think anything like that. And to say that about Neizghání. He’s a legend. A hero. He saved your life when . . .” He tapers off.

I thumb the edge of my coffee cup.

The old man’s voice is soft, hurt. “I’m sorry, shí daughter. I know you don’t like to think about that night.” He sighs, sips at his coffee. “I wish you would let me do a prayer for you.”

“No.”

“It’s not good, all this death on you. The right ceremony might help—”

“Tah. Please.”