"No." Bulmer struggled to hang on to Tiller, who fought to escape. "I don't see anything."
Tiller surged in the man's grasp, bellowing out curses, screaming out to his father. Michael helped hold Tiller back, having real difficulty in the muddy water swirling over his feet.
As Michael watched, the ghost… the image, he corrected himself… broke into a run. Surefooted as a mountain goat, the specter seemed to have no problem at all running across the muddy ground. The hanged man sprinted across the short distance. His feet didn't disturb the water, and whatever noise he made didn't sound over the pealing thunder crashing through the heavens.
"Noooooo!" Tiller yelled. Instead of fighting against Bulmer and Michael, he suddenly reversed his efforts and tried to flee. Bulmer barely kept his footing, and Michael dropped to one knee, feeling the mud close around him.
In the next instant the ghost slammed into Tiller and Michael at the same time a bolt of lightning smacked the ground near them. A blinding moment of pain passed through Michael. He felt Tiller ripped from his hands, but that wasn't his main concern, because he suddenly fell backward, blown by some arcane force, and landed in the cold mud.
Time returned to Michael in a rush. He actually felt his heart start again, feeling like the beat had been primed with a stick of dynamite or TNT.
"Just lie still," Bulmer was saying.
Michael pushed the man's hands away. "I'm okay." He glanced down at Tiller as he pushed himself to a seated position. "How's he?"
"Out," Bulmer said. He laid a hand at the side of Tiller's neck. "He's got a strong pulse."
Even as Bulmer spoke, Tiller groaned and his eyes flickered open. "Did you see it?" Tiller asked.
"The lightning that hit the ground?" Bulmer asked.
Michael gazed silently at the football-size crater that had opened in the ground. He tried not to think about what would have happened to them if the bolt had struck them with all the water around.
"Not that," Tiller said. "The ghost. My father's ghost."
Bulmer shook his head. "That wasn't a ghost, Tiller. That was just lightning that came way too close."
"No," Tiller argued. "I saw my father's ghost."
Michael found the flashlight he'd been holding till the incredible force slammed into him. He shone the beam in all directions, but there was no sign of the image.
"Give me a hand," Bulmer said. "Let's get Tiller to Roswell and let someone in the ER take a look at him."
"No," Tiller objected, shaking them off. "I'm not going to the ER. I'm fine. I saw what 1 saw." He started to say more, but he caught himself and stopped. "I saw what I saw." His voice was low and quavering. Emotion lighted his eyes. Without another word he turned and walked back through the rain and over the muddy ground toward the camp.
Bulmer pointed his heavy-duty lantern at the ground. He held the beam steady for a moment, studying the crater. The halogen light reflected from the gathering water. "Did you see anything?" Bulmer asked.
Michael stared into the emptiness where the lights stripped the shadows away. Only hard rock covered with running water met his gaze.
Whatever Michael had seen was gone, and whatever it had been had gone unseen by the others. He had to think about that. His alien nature gave him different senses and powers than humans, and he still didn't know their full extent. But what he did know was one of the first lessons he'd learned: He couldn't come across as different. Anonymity meant safety.
He snapped off the flashlight and looked at Bulmer. "No. I didn't see anything." As he turned and trudged up the hill, Michael also hoped he never saw the specter again.
Max Evans pulled the rented 71 Oldsmobile Cutlass to a stop outside the Mesaliko Native-American reservation. After the jeep had blown up, he had needed wheels again. For the moment, the rented Cutlass fit the bill. He watched the people moving through the village while the yellow dust cloud he'd brought in with him dissipated. The sun beat down on the land, already hot though it was only midmorning.
He couldn't believe he was just sitting behind the wheel. The Mesaliko people watching him probably thought he was bored or lost. And maybe he was lost. Ever since Tess had left with the baby… his son… there had been an emptiness inside him that he'd never before experienced.
Max peered at his reflection in the dust-streaked windshield. I sent my son away, and I didn't go with him. What kind of father would do that?
All his life in school he'd struggled not to get involved with others, to maintain his own personal bubble of individuality. Getting caught up in the lives of others put him at risk because he was different. He'd always known he was different; he just hadn't known how much.
Yet as distant and reserved as he tried to make himself be, he'd involved himself in the lives of others without hesitation at times. That reservation had broken when he'd saved Liz Parker's life at the Crashdown Cafe almost two years ago. The image of Liz falling back when the gunman's bullet struck her still sometimes haunted Max's dreams. He had made a choice that day to use his powers to heal her, and had thrown them together and apart ever since.
Opening the Cutlass's door, Max stepped out into the oven heat that settled over the harsh land. The slow ticking of the Cutlass's cooling engine sounded loud in the silence of the village. A child wrapped an arm around her mother's leg and retreated behind the woman.
Three Mesaliko men in jeans, T-shirts, and sweat-stained denim shirts with the sleeves hacked off were putting a new roof on a community building. Although none of them spoke, the three men rose as one and stepped over the edge of the single-story building. Their boots thumped against the alkaline ground when they landed, then they headed for Max.
Max held his ground and watched them approach even though he wanted to get back into the Cutlass and leave. He watched the men stop just out of arm's reach, forming a semicircle around him.
"What are you doing here?" one of the men demanded. He was Max's height and slim build, but his arms and shoulders showed musculature from long, hard hours of manual labor. He kept a roofing hammer in one scarred hand.
"I was invited," Max said. He had to push the words out. From past visits to the reservation, he knew that the Mesaliko tribe didn't much care for outsiders, and cared even less for anyone connected to the legends of the Visitor that had arrived in the fateful spaceship crash in Roswell in 1947.
"Who invited you?" the man demanded.
"River Dog," Max answered. The messenger had found him only a short time ago in Roswell.
"I don't know anything about this," the man said.
Max nodded. "I'm sorry."
"He shouldn't be here," one of the other men declared.
"We could make him leave," the third man suggested.
Anger surged through Max. The emotion was raw and vibrant, sometning new that had become part of him after losing his son and seeing Liz with Kyle.
"I'm not leaving," Max said in a low voice.
The man holding the hammer stared at him, his face as cold and still as marble. "Maybe you won't have a choice, boy."
One of the men standing to the side took a step, moving farther behind Max.
Max resisted the impulse to step back toward the Cutlass to prevent them from circling him. For a moment, he realized the rebelliousness that filled him was something he would have expected from Michael.
A dog started barking excitedly. Running footsteps echoed between the small dwellings. A moment later, a young girl with feathers and turquoise twisted into her braids ran toward them. She wore khaki hiking shorts and a lavender spaghetti-strap tank, and couldn't have been more than ten years old.
"George Grayhawk," the young girl called out. "River Dog is waiting for this man."