Dema welcomed the return to the stark desert landscape on the road southeast of Phoenix. In a way it was the shaman-dream made manifest, where the sense of time was slowed to an almost geologic pace. It was as if she were entering the true realm of the spirit.

In Phoenix, as in Chicago, the world of materialist man was dominant. The underlying spirit, though present, could be comfortably ignored, suppressed, almost forgotten.

That modern world-view, pressed by those for whom the challenge of the spirit was felt as a threat rather than an opportunity for enlightenment, did not prevail here. She understood why the Navajo in the Four-Corners region, and the Yaqui here in the south, continued to sense and respond to the spirit-world. They had little choice. Survival here could depend upon it.

She was reminded of her grandmother Sedna's spirit-quest, her own more recent harsh introduction to her shaman heritage, and the ancestral experience of the first Lamia. Even the experiences of her sister Kore and her mother Naga. In each case, a threat to survival had been met by a response of the spirit that opened in them possibilities that were rejected by the modern world. It would be the same here, but the veneer of civilization was much thinner, and would more readily be seen for the illusion it was by those who chose to live here.

She was still far from Nogales as she had these thoughts, and there was almost no traffic in either direction. She should have been surprised to see a man walking beside the road ahead, but she was not. Once she saw him, it was as if she had known he would be here.

Her eyes told her he had a dog with him, her shaman awareness told her it was not a dog but a coyote. She knew she would stop, and that he would ride with her to Nogales.

He did not look back or stop walking as she approached, but when she pulled up beside him he turned and opened the passenger door without hesitation. He had on worn and faded jeans and a lightweight long-sleeved white cotton shirt. A somewhat battered wide-brimmed straw hat shaded his face and neck.

His build was slim and wiry; he was probably only a little taller than she. His hair was black, his skin weathered and burned to a shade somewhat darker than her own dusky coloring. His age was difficult to guess, but he was not young.

The coyote leaped inside, sniffed her and licked her cheek, then jumped in the back. The man's eyes met hers briefly as he climbed into the seat beside her and closed the door. His eyes were black, and they were shining. He gave the slightest nod of greeting and turned to face down the road, settling into his seat.

She drove on. Neither of them spoke, but his mind was open to her shaman awareness. She came to know that he was a native Yaqui Indian. He was known to the Nogales police as a tracker, because he had assisted them in that capacity on occasion, but he did not think of himself that way.

Some of the younger members of his own tribe called him a medicine man, but that was because they were inexperienced and too anglicized to understand the old ways, although it was true he collected useful plants and performed a sort of healing when called upon. He thought of himself more as a man of the spirit, and Dema recognized in this a strong parallel to her own shaman tradition.

For his part, he had sensed the same about her when he learned she was coming, and it was because of this that he had met her on the road. Dema was both impressed and flattered by this. She had known nothing of him before she saw him on the road, although he was perhaps part of the reason she was driving.

He guided her to the Nogales Police headquarters where the DEA team had their office. He and his companion left the car and walked away without a word, but she knew she would find him again when the time was right. Or he would find her.