Light clouds back-lit the dramatic spires, buttes, and promontories rising above the valley floor. Gothic shapes etched by eons of wind and water. Spring was upon the land. While snow crested the mountain peaks and highest of the mesas, the end of winter began in the lower gorges and brush-covered valleys.

The timber of the high-country, cone-bearing ponderosas and firs, gave way to the chaparral of the foothills. Halfway down into the canyons and minor valleys, pygmy forests of pinyon and juniper dominated the hillsides as evergreen oaks sprinkled the gentler slopes, while cottonwoods indicated the presence of a vital source of water, whether stream or brook, spring or underground source.

Van, Teven, and Juan entered a wide, arid, yet colorful valley between mesas, north of the parallel valley followed by the herd. Even with the early Spring, colors surrounded the trio. Reds, whites, and pinks in horizontal stripes of sandstone, blazoned across the walls of the flat mesas, exposed by millennia of erosion. Mother Nature fed upon the land as if it were a layered cake. The gray-green of rabbitbrush and sage surrounded them in patches across the broad valley. The blues and whites of the sky and clouds cut sharply through the clarity of six thousand feet above sea level. The thick scent of pine and sage enlivened the already bracing highland air.

As Juan Semos led the way, Van spied the broken walls of ruins to their left, nearer a low escarpment or promontory jutting from the tabletop lands. Juan Semos appeared intent on avoiding them and Van spoke up.

“Juan Semos do you mind if we travel through, rather than skirt, those ruins?” He pointed at the fallen adobe masonry.

Juan Semos glanced at the Pueblo structures and looked over his shoulder at Van. “Only ghosts to be found there, Señor Van.”

Teven appraised Van with a raised eyebrow. Ghosts or wraiths, the shadow of Azov casted a long reach.

Van nudged his horse left and with a shrug, Teven did likewise. Juan Semos took on a weary cast, yet followed the two old friends.

The collapsed remains of clustered stone houses and adobe beehive-shaped ovens struggled amidst the cedars and rabbitbrush. The land did its best to reclaim the ancient buildings. Mother Nature possessed a rabid appetite.

Van looked about, but did not see what he searched for. Teven gave Juan Semos a shrug and the old mestizo cantered along, aloof.

*

Day Long brought his grulla to a halt as the herd continued east. As the dust settled, he reached into a saddle bag and withdrew his pack of mixed corn paste, berries, and honey. He sagged in his saddle and lowered his orange bandana. With dust waved from his face, he took in a deep breath and exhaled. The strong scent of crushed sage and lime filled his sinuses and he sneezed a half-dozen times. Wiping his nose with the bandana, he unwrapped the packet of paste. The mix of blue corn and juniper ash was familiar to Day Long from the Navajo, and the Abajo prepared the same concoction, but added salt. Nathan chose berries and honey to produce a dry paste he could then convert into a custard of sorts over a flame. Day Long didn't much care about all of that at the moment. He removed his dust-caked gloves and scooped up a wad of the blue paste with two bare fingers.

He noticed the movement as he sucked on his index finger. Something followed the herd. It lurked at a safe distance. A coyote maybe, or a wolf. He didn't hold much thought to a mountain lion, but it was early spring, it could be. Their natural aversion to the longhorns, any one of them was no true threat. Easy to shoot and be done with.

Another of the tail riders waited ahead. Day Long waved the vaquero on, he'd follow the herd soon enough. He pulled his feet clear of the stirrups and grabbed hold of the pommel and the saddle roll behind him and swung his leg over to sit side-saddle. He then swung his leg over the horse's rear and sat in reverse, backwards in his saddle. His grulla cantered along as the Seminole scout chewed on his honeyed corn paste and dried berries. He rode for the next twenty minutes as a shadow flickered, on occasion, among the rabbitbrush and sage. It followed the herd and avoided Day Long’s gaze.

“Well, hell.” He sighed and considered the matter. An idea formed. He looked at a low ridge aligned west to east and parallel to their path. A ridge along the valley floor. Day Long rubbed his back where the pommel pressed against his crack, loosened the catgut holding his canteen to the saddle and drank deep. Time for a refill from Nathan's wagon, and a change of plans.

Repeating the about-face on his saddle, Day Long spurred his mount into a gallop entering the cloud of dust around the left flank of the herd, out of sight of whatever beast pursued them.

*

Van rode ahead of Teven and Juan, studying the walls of the mesas. They passed a ruin perched on a jagged ridge, massive masonry built atop rimrock, windswept and abandoned long ago.

The trio rode on around the ridge and the panorama opened before then. A sun-drenched city of stone, set into a weather-sculpted cavern in the tall cliff face thirty feet ahead of them. Van’s head turned here and there taking in the quiet repose of eternity. The flat roofs and straight walls of an abandoned apartment complex nestled side by side and atop each other, broken by round and square towers jutting toward the recessed cavern ceiling.

Van raised his hand to Teven and Juan, a signal for them to halt.

Juan Semos nudged his horse closer to Teven. “I don't understand.”

Van swiveled in his saddle. “I met an elder among the Abajo named Pooling Waters. He explained some of the history of his people, of all the Pueblo peoples.”

Juan Semos made an expression of understanding, his mouth slightly opened. He pointed at Van. “The Pueblo too are some of my people, those you call the Zuni, whom these mountains are named for. They and my Spanish ancestors.” He grew quiet and contemplative.

“There is a hidden history to this land just as there is in the old world.” Van said.

Teven frowned. “I thought you came out here to escape all of that?”

Van shook his head, raised and waved his hands. “Yes, and I came out here to escape war. To forge something new. But you remember the manor library? All those tales of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and the Greek myths?”

Teven scoffed. There was plenty of violence, death, and horror in each one of those tales. And magic, a great deal of magic. Even for Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Had the horrors of Azov shaken Van, baptized him to the reality of the Otherworld unimagined in those books and old tales? The Greek Myths certainly told of more blood and violence than any stories printed in the books Jessica kept.

Thinking of his wife made Teven pause.

Van dismounted to climb the face of the rock. A partial collapse of the sandstone overhang provided a natural staircase of immense and odd-shaped boulders covered by scree up to the level of the ruins.

Upon the walls above the ruined apartment complex, a forgotten mural loomed large, bold and grey. Images in faded white, red, black, and yellow covered the pink rock. Hand prints and spirals amidst an array of animals, birds, men, women, and weapons. Beautiful all and not what drew Van's eye. The spirals, yes, and the strange figures, not men or women, but something more. Horned figures, taller than the male and female human figures depicted. Deities or demons? Both? Creatures certainly, not mere warriors in ceremonial regalia.

Van ran his hand inches above the rock, cautious not to touch the ancient symbols. A code unbroken after thousands of years. Centuries of weather had abraded the aged sigils, now faded vestiges of their original forms, save for the power inherent in them.

A unique figure stood out among the others, taller, without horns, but some ornate headdress, carrying what looked like a spear or javelin. Or a staff? A line broken by an ‘x’ at the end of the figure’s arm with a spiral at both ends of the line, or rather, both ends of the spear.

Beside the figure was another symbol. It looked like an ‘x’ between two brackets.

Van cast his eyes around the mural, stopped to look behind him, and stepped away as far as he could. The odd figure stood apart from the horned and human figures. Was it meant to represent the leader of the gods, or a warrior of the people? A protector? So many questions, a mystery Van was happy to lose himself in. He recalled his childhood reading those stories and acting them out in the wilds of his Welsh home.

“Van!” Teven called out. “The herd will be past our rendezvous if we linger here. I'm sorry, but we've got to move on.”

“Yes, I know, I know.” Van held his fingers over the X-man. What did he represent?

*

With a full canteen and Nathan's borrowed repeater, Day Long rode around the edge of the ridge which, like the herd, stretched west two or more miles. He sucked his teeth. He and the tail riders would tighten up the drive. The cloud of dust obscured the rest of the rise, and anything further. Whatever creature hunted the cattle wouldn't see him. He thought it odd, most predators kept well clear of the ill-tempered longhorns. The cattle near as crazy as he was, with little more patience.

Rounding the edge of the rise, Day Long cantered west behind the ridge. The herd continued at its casual pace, eastward on the other side. The cloud of dust soon came, but stayed for the most part, on the southern side of the ridge. Day Long dismounted, hobbled his horse, unsheathed Nathan's repeater, and climbed the steep slope of the ridge but stopped below its crest and waited. He sat with his head back and stared up through the dust. As the cloud diminished, the sky turned a solid blue and the rumble and percussion of the hooves lessened.

Day Long popped his head over the crest of the ridge. A grey wolf stood, some two hundred feet away, it's head turned to and staring at Day Long. It’s body faced east and he only saw its left side. He felt a great unease and wondered if the beast’s pack surrounded him in the brush. He tightened his grip on the rifle. The wolf continued to watch him.

Day Long snapped the repeater to his shoulder and sighted the rifle. The wolf lunged into a zigzag course through the brush and was lost before Day Long curled his finger around the trigger. “Tricky bastard.”

*

The trio remained silent as they rode across the valley toward the tenant farm. Van rode a pace behind Teven and Juan Semos, contemplating the meanings of the ancient rock art.

Juan Semos turned to Teven and broke the silence. “Señor Gray? What war did you fight in?”

Teven smiled. “It's Har, my family name simply means gray.”

“Apologies Señor Har. Is it too much of me to ask? I heard you and Señor Van talk of it, the war.”

“It was a war with Russia, in a place known as the Crimea. We fought in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. The Andrew, we call it. The Navy service, that is. Fought a battle in the Azov Campaign that saw…some horrific, unnatural things.”

“Brujeria?”

Teven looked at Juan Semos with a confused expression. “I don't…?”

“Magic? Like the drawings of the Old Ones? In the ruins?” Juan Semos gestured behind them and pulled his horse to an abrupt halt.

Behind them, Van sat atop his mount and looked up in the sky. Juan Semos and Teven followed his line of sight. Ahead, in the distance, carrion birds circled.