Bones in the Dust, and Sweltering Heat (Edited)

The waterfall clamored over the rounded boulders, dropping into the abyss with a roar and a hiss. The water was an icy defiance of the hot summer afternoon.

They had been there, the youth. The older Sil and Inno, Tony and Seraphim eager in their youth. Shouting and yelling with the torrent. Dipping arms and feet and heads in, reveling in the cold. But they were gone now. They and old man Gish had gone further up, exploring over the sweltering stones and dead, sapless sagebrush.

The sky was empty and blue; bright in the emptiness, and hot.

Half naked, Sil sits back on his heels in the dell. Almost perfectly circular, the sides of the dell sloped up around him. A rugged road ran in a spiral down in to the valley, while a drain of tumbled stone cut into the slope opposite him. Overhead, power lines ran between the outstretched arms of giant metal skeletons, their once unceasing hum now silenced.

Above him on the slope stand two other youth, in similar states of undress as he. Inno, tall and wiry, stands in still contemplation of some mystic rapture; the sun glinting off his dark curls. Tony is much younger the than the first two; hard-bodied and exuberant. He surveys the the world through a worn pair of binoculars. Further still above the three, on a the round bosom of the hill, old man Gish and Seraphim examine the an ancient worm road. They are more fully clothed than the others, and something in their faces betokens kinship.

In the dell, Sil fingers the bones of some small creature with eyes half closed against the sunlight. Dust runs out between his fingers. There is not even a little wind to catch at the falling silt. All is still and quiet and sweltering. He reaches down and arranges the bones at his feet. A strange stone sits near him, in a triangle scratched in the earth; its polished surface scored with deep cracks.

He raises his head and turns his face to the sun. His skin is drinking in the light and heat. His solidly built frame his tense, waiting for something. He rearranges the bones. Heavy boots encase his feet, a long knife hangs from the belt that holds a faded pair of jeans around his hips.

Suddenly a strange wail sounds across the blazing rocks, through the stifling air. Old man Gish cries out. Tony scans the desert landscape with the binoculars for the source of the wail. Inno slowly comes back to reality from his meditations. In the dell, crouching, Sil smiles. He reached back and his fingers tap thoughtfully at the hilt of his knife.

The sky is blue and bright, and hot in the brightness. But there are small things that shimmer in the high atmosphere, growing larger. Wails rise to greet them.