White Wolf. Lindsay McKenna

realizing it, he began to hum the tune under his breath. Amazingly, as he crested the incline, it made his legs feel less cramped.

      Halting, he looked around the endless, dark landscape that now seamlessly melded with the unseen horizon and the dark blanket of the night. The only way Dain knew where sky ended and land began was to look where the twinkling stars dropped off. He was pleased that he had enough of his own rational logic left to figure that much out. Frowning, he looked around. The vehicle tracks led down—nearly straight down. He was standing on a mesa. Vaguely, he recalled Erin saying she lived at the bottom of one.

      Still, where was he? Where was her hogan? He’d seen hogans as he’d driven toward Chinle, one of the major towns on the Navajo Reservation. They were octagonal, made with long, rough pieces of timber, with mud packed between the logs. The roof of the hogan, from what he could observe, was nothing more than dried red clay. Who would live in such a primitive structure? And yet, he’d seen hogans everywhere. They melted into the surrounding soft pastels of the high desert, the reddish clay the same color as the mesas and bluffs so prominent in this part of the reservation.

      Squinting, he swept his eyes from left to right. Was there a hogan down there somewhere? Dain thought he saw a glimmer of light as he viewed the darkness below him. Were his eyes playing tricks upon him? And then he remembered that he’d seen no electric poles out here. So if Erin’s hogan was nearby, how could he see it if she had no electricity? No light outside her home to guide him?