The Ghost on the Moki Steps

“She’s evil, Caleb.  Come with me while you can.”

There was a light behind Enoch, but it wasn’t the moon.  Caleb had to squint again to make out his face.  The light was getting brighter.

“They’re cooking supper,” Caleb told his brother.  “I haven’t eaten for..., I don’t know how long.  I’m hungry.”

“You won’t need food where you’re going.  You’d best leave now or you’ll spend eternity here.”

Caleb looked back.  The girl appeared hurt by Enoch’s words.  He was torn between her and his brother.  When he turned again toward Enoch, the light was blinding.  He raised a hand to shade his eyes.  “It’s not so bad here, Enoch.  I like this place and these people, too.”

Enoch was moving away, slowly, holding out a hand for his brother to take.  When he called again his voice seemed to come from a distance.  “Look again, Caleb.”

Caleb turned.  The girl stood alone in an empty village.  Cobwebs filled the doorways.  The fires were cold.  The cooking pots were empty and covered with dust.

As he looked at the girl her skin turned black.  It split open, and shriveled flesh peeled away from her bones.  Her smile became a grimace, then her dried lips curled back exposing teeth that were yellowed and cracked.

“No,” Caleb cried.  “It can’t be!”

As the hideous creature took a tottering step toward him, fear stabbed at Caleb’s heart, and he backed away from her.

Suddenly he felt his brother’s hand on his shoulder.  “Now, Caleb!  Flee her!  This place is not natural.  She doesn’t belong here.  Neither do you.”

With a sob Caleb turned toward his brother and the light.

A coyote barked again somewhere on the mesa top, but the sound did not wake the man under the feathered blanket.  He was no longer breathing.

The girl was alone in the deserted pueblo.  She let her senses roam the moonlit canyon, but she found no other spirits within her reach.  The injured man had almost understood her, but his strength had left him.  Even though she had shown him the spring in his dreams, he had been too weak to go there to drink.

An owl called in the darkness.  She swung her hand in a sudden gesture and a gust of wind swept through the cave raising dust and scattering the ashes of Caleb’s fire.  The still remaining embers flared and sparked mirroring her rising anger.  She frowned and projected her rage; a whirlwind rose up in the canyon.  Spinning faster and faster it swept up dust and dry leaves, then as its power increased, it lifted twigs and small stones into the swirl.