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Coyote, in his animal form, put one paw onto the remains of the skinwalker and pulled back in distaste.
“Why don’t you just die?” he growled.
“I am a skinwalker,” the thing rasped. “More powerful than any Changer. I will kill you.”
“Bad luck for you,” Coyote said. “I’m not a Changer.”
He blew his breath onto the skinwalker. The half-dead beast screamed once, then shuddered, mewled, and dissolved into dust.
“Done,” Coyote said in a deep voice.
He looked up at the house. Even though the windows were closed, Coyote’s superior hearing picked up the excited sounds of sex. He licked his lips. He could climb up there and watch them. That might be fun.
He laughed, imagining the look on Naomi’s face if he did.
Coyote threw back his head and gave the starlit sky one determined howl. Then he turned and loped through the deserted parking lot of Hansen’s, heading down the road toward the Crossroads Bar.
he depot was deserted and dark when Naomi parked the truck in front of it just before dawn. The celebration was long over, the lights extinguished, the depot locked.
Coyote’s message had told them to meet him there. He’d left the scrawled note on top of the quilt under which Jamison and Naomi had slept. Which meant he’d crept in there while they’d been naked and entwined. The shit.
Naomi and Jamison climbed to the deserted platform behind the depot. It was freezing, and their breath hung heavily in the starlit air.
The night held no terror for Naomi now. The skinwalker was dead, and Jamison was alive, and they would marry after the Christmas celebrations. Coyote helping her save Jamison was the best Christmas gift anyone could have given her.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t damn cold out there. “He’d better show up soon,” Naomi muttered. “And I still don’t understand why he sent you down to those awful people in Mexico.”
Jamison slid his arm around her. “I think he did because there was no one closer to teach me. Whatever else the Changer pack did, they taught me how to control my ability and use it well. If I hadn’t learned that, I probably would have gone insane, like Alex Clay. I never could have returned to you.”
“Maybe,” Naomi said grudgingly. “But Coyote should have checked on you.”
“He’s a god. He doesn’t follow our rules.”
“I’m just glad he was here to help you now.” She shivered, thinking of what might have been. Jamison tightened his hold on her, leaning her back against him.
They waited in silence. The railroad bed stretched to the horizon, a straight man-made line running across a land creased with winding arroyos.
An icy wind whispered across Naomi’s cheek. She turned to look north, in the direction of the wind, and squinted at something flickering out in the desert.
Footsteps sounded behind them on the platform. “Hey,” Coyote said. He wore his usual jeans and leather coat and carried a small duffel bag over his shoulder.
“Hey yourself,” Naomi answered. “Why are we here?”
Coyote grinned. “To see the real Ghost Train.”
“What are you up to?” Jamison asked him, but Coyote held up his hand.
“They’re coming. Look.”
The chill wind touched Naomi’s cheek again, and the flickering she’d seen grew brighter. A small cloud of dust drifted silently over the desert.
When the dust cleared, she saw figures moving along the railroad bed, walking single file on the raised earth. The figures were those of men and women, ghostly and nearly transparent. They were Native American, dressed in Navajo wool or in leather and skins. Silver glittered here and there along with the flash of turquoise.
“I feel this,” Jamison said softly. “This is real.”
“Who are they?” Naomi asked.
Coyote’s voice was slow and quiet. “Magellan is a crossroads. The way is thinner here between this world and the ones below it. On this night, the land remembers the crossing of so many from life to what lies beyond.”
