A Shadow in the Desert

Chapter Twelve

This weather made him restless. He had several more fires to unleash before winter settled in. He wanted to cause as much damage as possible. He had high hopes for ruining the holidays for as many 'heathens' as he could.

This was his land, his valley, and the rest were nothing more than interlopers. He would make them all pay for coming here and ruining his life.

He stopped rubbing the knife blade across the stone and held it up to check the edge. It glistened in the early morning light thrown out across the valley. The thick dark clouds followed close behind the sun, and he noticed with some pleasure that it wouldn't be able to outrun them.

"You're as good as gone," he said into the icy wind that whipped through the barn. "As dead as that buck."

The lifeless deer hung a few feet away. His empty stare reflected shards of sunlight, but try as it might, the mournful orb could not revive him.

As the man prepared to dress the animal, he let his mind wsnder back across the bridge of time to where the carnage began, over a hundred years ago.

*

Laurel woke to find her bedroom filled with white light. It was almost noon. The brightness pulled her up and out of bed like an excited child on Christmas morning. She knew something was different, but she couldn't recognize what it was.

Satdo came trotting in to say good morning. He too seemed different, more animated.

"What's going on, boy?" she asked as she ran her hand over his head.

She began making her way towards the kitchen to start her coffee, when she abruptly stopped. The entire house was bathed in a diaphanous alabaster glow. It came from outside where a thick curtain of white flakes poured down in a blur – outside where everything had been covered with four or five inches of cotton gauze.

"Snow!" she breathed in awe.

Satdo danced in front of her as if the entire scene was his own doing.

"Snow!" she exclaimed as she ran to open the front door.

*

The first flakes began to float down just as he'd finished dressing the buck. He knew this early storm would blow past. He would still have plenty of time for his retribution. He'd create an inferno – the likes that Eden and the surrounding areas would never forget. There were so many sins to pay for, so many years of abuse.

The evil had started with the settlers coming to the valley and bringing diseases and pollution along with unwanted changes. The valley had been under attack for over a century by these selfish yahoo's who didn't know up from down. His family had suffered for too many years waiting for someone to make this right. He was that someone. He would set things back the way they were.

His own wife had been a victim of these interlopers. He watched her suffer and wither away from Leukemia. He knew it had been caused by pollutants in the water which in turn affected the livestock and crops. These unwanted invaders had crowded the roads with their cars, spilling their pollutants into the air.

He began cutting at the deer in angry jabs as he recalled having to sell most of his land to pay for his wife's treatment. Nothing worked. They poured poison into her veins in hopes of a cure, but they killed her instead. He suffered every bit as much as she did. As the end drew near, he vowed that her death would not be in vain. They would all suffer just as much as she had.

He knew that the only way to save his valley was to purify it, to eradicate the toxins and let it restore itself to its past glory. Fire would cleanse and purify the land. Fire would obliterate the unwanted as well.