Dragons of Desert and Dust

ONE

Facing east toward the mountains, Angel Cerillos dug his toes into the loose slats of the shed's roof. As the sun shimmered across the New Mexico desert, he lifted his arms upward, feeling the turquoise talisman warming against his chest like a piece of desert sky.

"The eagles are my brothers..." he chanted. He swept his arms downward in the eagles' curving wing thrusts, imitating how they soared over the parched mountains.

"I am greater than the eagles..."

Eyes drifting shut, his mind flew skyward.

"I am king of the skies...." The rhythmic beat, beat of his arms echoed the chant. He could hear the singing clearly now – there, just beyond the horizon. A thrumming chant that was getting louder and louder, day by day. Magic singing that no one else heard....

"Angel! Angel!" Treese Tanner's voice cracked through the dream. Arms still flapping, his feet skidded on the tin roof. Scrabbling with fingers and scraping with toes, he slid along the burning metal, and then down over the edge.

A cry tore from his throat. He flew now, but straight down, slamming onto the hard-packed dirt. Gasping for breath, he saw his foster mother loom like a black shadow against the sky. Treese Tanner's lips pursed and she jammed her big hands on her hips. The hot wind blew her badly-cut hair around her head like a faded halo.

"Y'okay?" she asked.

Angel tried to answer, but all that came out was a raspy grunt.

"Can you get up?" she asked.

He wheezed again, and thrashed like a bug on a pin. She stared back, exasperation evident on her weathered face. "You deserve to have broke every bone you got," she told him. "Fourteen years old and you don't have the sense you were born with. And those sad blue eyes of yours don't fool me. I seen the way you look at Gary when he pushes you too far. But you watch yourself around him – he can get mean."

"I know," Angel grunted. "I ain't gonna get in his way."

Treese snorted. "I don't think you'd hardly know anything, the way you're always mooning around."

"I can look after myself." Angel stared up at the sky, wishing he could fly up there, and away from his life.

"You need someone to watch out for you, kid, but I'm not the mothering kind, so you be careful. Now, get up. Put your shirt on. We got work to do." She turned and headed toward the front of the motel. Angel stayed where he was, lying in the dust, waiting for his breathing to get back to normal.

For a moment he had thought his secret chant was going to work, thought that the haunting dreams and whispering voices would be satisfied and stop. His only friend around here, Celsa Reyna, had helped him come up with words that sounded like an old Indian chant. He had even come out here early – not sunrise exactly – but as close as he could manage without an alarm clock. Spitting out a mouthful of dust, Angel sat up and stared into the gleaming blue sky. For a minute he had felt like he could flap his arms and rise into the air just like one of the eagles that soared over the motel. Felt like he could escape.

"Angel!" Treese called from the front of the motel. "Get a move on!"

"Coming!" Angel yelled back, even though he stayed put, looking up at the sky, drinking in the beautiful blue. For once he felt peaceful, not all torn up by the storms of emotion that rolled over him like thunderclouds on the mountains. Up until the state moved him here to the Lone Butte Motel he had been able to pull back, not get caught up in the fights and bad stuff around him. But there was something about this clean dry air, endless horizon, and blue sky that had him stirred up. Of course, life at the motel didn't help.