Max looked around, then back at Kyle. "If we weren't here, I could fix your arm."

"I'm going to have to get stitches," Kyle admitted. "I'm not happy. Believe me when I say that if you could heal me without my having to answer a bunch of questions, I'd be all for it."

"I don't mean to cut this short," Liz said, "but I've got to get back to the Crashdown."

Max looked uncomfortably at Kyle. "I'm her ride. After I drop her off, I can come back."

Kyle shook his head and waved the offer away. "It's cool. My boss is going to stick around and get me home."

After brief hesitation, Max said, "If your dad knew you were here, he'd be here."

"I know," Kyle said, but the answer was automatic, not even close to the confusion that he truly felt. His relationship with his dad had always been hard because his dad

had held such high expectations for him. Now with his professional life in chaos around him, his dad didn't seem able to fight back, or to demand the same high standards he'd exacted.

After Liz and Max said their good-byes, Kyle blew his breath out and tried to block the pain from his arm. He closed his eyes, blowing his breath out again, then breathing in through his nose the way his football coach had taught him to control pain and regain his focus. The exercise had worked in the past, but the results at the moment weren't worth mentioning.

Suddenly the firm surface of the hospital bed seemed far away, like the bed was supporting someone else's body. Disorientation made his head swim, almost triggering a bout of nausea.

You know the Outsiders, a clear, cold voice accused. They are your friends, Kyle Valenti. Don't you know that you should fear that which is different?

That would be the whole high school, Kyle thought.

Don't trust the Outsiders, the voice went on. They are not like you. They don't have the same agenda that your people do. You can't trust anyone outside your own species.

Kyle struggled to wake but couldn't. Then pain flamed along his injured arm. He groaned, and found he was suddenly able to move again. Blinking his eyes open, he spotted the silver thing on the wall behind the bed. He had a brief impression of wire-thin tentacles and an oblong body the size of a quarter. Soundlessly, the insect-thing spread diaphanous wings that resembled see-through aluminum foil. The thing hurled itself into the air and sped away, glinting occasionally under the lights of the emergency room.

Pain flared in Kyle's arm again, drawing his attention down in time to watch Dr. Bohr shove a hypodermic into his forearm again. The impersonal pressure of the anesthetic filled his arm, turning the limb numb. At the same time, his mind seemed to clear as if a cloud had lifted.

"This is going to sting a bit," Dr. Bohr said. "Sorry. 1 thought you were asleep."

"Not asleep now." Kyle looked up at the wall over his bed. The silver thing with wire-thin limbs seemed to have disappeared. Hallucination, he told himself. That's all it is.

But he was scared that it hadn't been.

15

Winded and tired, mind racing with the knowledge of all the things that were taking place back in the Mesaliko town, River Dog halted his journey up the side of the tall hill. From where he stood, he could see the lights of the houses back in his village. Darkness had fallen only moments ago, scattering shadows across the desert that would only turn gray when the moon burned in full.

The wind had started to change as he neared his destination, blowing out the last of the diurnal heat and bringing in the first of the nocturnal chill that filled the desert at night. River Dog pulled the ceremonial robe he wore more tightly about his body.

The lights in the town were dim, only a mere handful compared with what was usually there. Many of the Mesaliko people had left, gone to stay with relatives and friends in other cities and reservations. After Max Evans had left, the power of the spirits had seemed to dwindle. No longer could the spirits make physical contact with the Mesaliko, but they appeared and disappeared with unnerving timing. They also shouted and raved, talking against the Visitors, ordering the Mesaliko to drive the Visitors from their midst, and from Roswell.

Resolutely, River Dog turned and continued his journey back up the hill. His eyes followed the whip-crack trail barely noticeable against the rugged rocks and scrubby cacti. The knoll and the cave it hid were less than fifty yards away.

River Dog leaned into the climb, putting more weight on the walking stick he used. The backs of his legs burned with fatigue, but he never hesitated in his assault upon the hill.

He had told Max Evans the truth when he'd said he hadn't known the location of the place where the Sun God had punished his ancestors and Raven. Rather than stay within the village for the spirits of his ancestors to haunt, he'd chosen to journey to one of his places of power. The cave was one of those places.

Sometime in the middle of his next step, a spirit materialized beside him, matching the step with ease, as if it had been there all along. The spirit was a wizened old man.

"River Dog," the spirit said, and his voice sounded frail and weak.

"I do not know you," River Dog said. He never broke his stride, putting one foot in front of the other as he continued the climb to the cave.

"I am called Hunts with Owls," the ancient one said. "I was once medicine man to our people."

River Dog looked at the spirit's leathery face, taking in the intricate woven beads of his leathers and the tiny bone carvings of owls that held back his hair braids. The eyes

gaped like black holes in the shadows, but River Dog felt the heat of the spirit's gaze.

"I have heard of you," River Dog acknowledged. "You were very powerful in our tribe, and you helped many people with sickness brought by the Europeans."

"I also fought and warred against those who took our lands," the spirit said.

River Dog planted his walking stick and continued up the steep hillside. "What do you want with me, Hunts with Owls?"

"What do you seek here?" the spirit asked.

"A better understanding of what is happening to my people."

"We have tried to explain what is happening to your people."

The one word, your instead of our, grated on River Dog's mind. How could the spirits feel that way? He turned his attention to the thing at his side. With the moonlight coming out now, the spirit turned pale gray and translucent.

"You are not of my people," River Dog stated. "You set yourself apart from us."

"Your ways have changed," the spirit snarled. "You know they have changed, River Dog. You have fought those changes. These people now, they are not what my people were. Not what our people were."

River Dog turned from the ghost and fixed his attention on the cave at the top of the knoll. "I will hear no more. I do not know what manner of creature you are, but you are not Hunts with Owls."

"Fool!" the thing snapped. In the next breath, the spirit was gone.

River Dog continued the walk up the hill. When he reached the cave, he went inside. The familiar dry and musty scent of the cave made him feel at home.

The cave was small, scarcely having enough room for River Dog to sit cross-legged under the low ceiling. He spread out his robes and sat, then began chanting, willing himself into a state that would be more receptive to the things that were going on in the world around him.

The spirits were not ancestors who had returned. All the violence he had seen until now had led him to think that way. And the fact that the spirits only became physical when Max Evans was around let River Dog know they were not what they claimed to be.

River Dog continued chanting, feeling himself slip into that halfway state that took him away from himself. Some days, when he cast his spirit out as he was doing now, he flew above the desert with Hawk and could feel the wind beneath his wings. At other times, he padded on tough leather paws with Coyote through the desert night. Not all of the young men he trained could still do such a thing. It was a way of life, a way of becoming one with nature that was disappearing.