Delbert's shovel clanged against another rock. Kneeling in the arid soil, he pried the rock loose and rolled it onto the pile with the others. He was certain of the spot—a sheltered ledge right below the summit of Steens Mountain overlooking Wildhorse Lake—but just how deep he had buried the white man's artifact he could not recall. Nor could he recall the man who had done the digging, the strength of his arm, the depth of his pride.

He got up and leaned wearily against the shovel's long handle, shivering under his heavy wool shirt now damp with sweat. Pain gnawed his shoulders to the bone.

"Keep digging," said Numec, looking up from the scope of his rifle. It was more like a cannon, fifty caliber at least, heavy enough to need its own bipod. He had propped the weapon on a boulder so he could blast anyone or anything approaching along the road.

"Are you expecting someone?" asked Delbert with a furtive glance at the ridge. Demi had gone hunting that morning high on the mountain where the big bucks lingered through October.

"This place is crawling with government agents."

"Why are they here?"

Numec nodded toward the shallow pit at Delbert's feet. "They want their artifact back."

"Then maybe we should give it to them. If what I buried could help stop this virus, we have to turn it over. By God, Jason, we have to."

"No," said Numec, his breath swirling through the snowflakes. "It doesn't belong to them. They were never meant to see it."

Another shiver racked Delbert's body, and he resumed his digging. He managed a few more inches, a few more rocks, before his shoulders forced him to stop again. "Is this virus Wovoka's prophecy coming true? Is this why people are doing the Ghost Dance again?"

"Maybe. Maybe Wovoka saw the future when he died and came back. Or maybe the people living near this mountain can sense its gravity. It's like a knot in universe."

Delbert paused, recalling Dr. Brisling's accusations. "Did you know the virus came from those seeds they cut out of the Old One's stomach?"

Numec seemed to flinch at the idea. "Yes. I saw the tletl weed growing on your windowsill. Where I was raised, the tletl weed grows wherever the ground is disturbed, usually after a fire. Tletl is the word for fire in our ceremonial language. But most people simply call the weed lágrimas for the little white tears it sheds."

"But why didn't you stop me from planting that seed?"

"Because it was already too late. When the scientists handed over the Old One's body with only four seeds, not five, I knew exactly what they'd done."

"You still could have warned them that the seeds were dangerous."

"We did warn them. We asked them not to desecrate the Old One's body, didn't we? We asked them to respect your customs—our customs. Instead, they cut him open and found the tletl seeds he swallowed."

"Was that some sort of test?"

"The last of many."

Delbert continued digging, and soon his shovel struck something firm but hollow. Kneeling, he reached down and cleared away a square of black plastic, vinyl maybe, twenty inches to a side—the lid of the container he had buried years ago. He hardly recognized it. "You've known this was coming all along, haven't you?"

Numec set his rifle against the boulder and knelt at Delbert's side. "Yes. I've been preparing native people all along, pushing energy independence, educating our youth in science and technology, the tools we'll need."

"My wind turbines. The solar panels."

Numec nodded. "When this world begins to crumble, we'll gather in all the places I've prepared for us, the homesteads and reservations powered by the sun and the wind. And when the vultures and coyotes have eaten their fill, we'll rebuild civilization in our own image."

They worked together at the edge of the pit, clearing the dirt from around the container with their bare hands, snowflakes crowning their heads. All the while, Delbert kept stealing glances at the ridge, hoping to see Demi's lanky silhouette against the clouds, rifle slung over her shoulder.

Numec grimaced as he lifted the container from the pit and set it aside. He stood, and for the first time, Delbert noticed that the front of his black overcoat was riddled with ragged holes, each clearly visible over the bright blue garment he wore beneath.

Delbert caught his breath and eyed the black case on the ground. "How do you know what's in there? I buried that before I even met you."

Numec paused and nodded to himself. "This will be difficult for you to understand. But you of all people deserve to hear it."

Delbert got to his feet and dusted off his hands.

"I wasn't born on the Fort Berthold Reservation," said Numec.

"I was beginning to figure that."

"I was born in your future, twenty-five hundred years from now, in a little village on the west coast of what you call Mexico. I had a family, a sister and twin nieces I loved like daughters. And I had a pet, a big jaguar." He closed his eyes, taking in the air of memory, a sad smile crossing his face. When he opened them again, they seemed darker, like storm clouds. "They are centuries away from me now. I know I will never see them again. But I am still there with them in that future." He tapped the side of his head with his finger. "I know, because I remember."

"Now that's just crazy talk."

"It has occurred to me that I might be clinically insane, that my memories are nothing more than an elaborate delusion. But there's proof, physical proof."

"What proof?"

Numec smiled, shaking his head. "In all the years we've known each other, Delbert, did you ever once stop and wonder how an Indian like me just wandered off the reservation and ended up building the world's most powerful biotech company?"

"An Indian can be successful, can't he?"

Numec laughed. "Not as successful as I've been. Nobody could be." Again, he tapped the side of his head, his expression intent. "I know things this civilization hasn't discovered yet. I've seen things you can't even imagine, Delbert. A hundred sunsets in a day. The shining towers of Nueva Coyolapan. I've heard the Symphony of Nebulas." He opened the front of his overcoat to reveal the shimmering blue garment he wore beneath.

Delbert gasped. "The Old One's tunic! You dug him up!"

"Do you really think I would do that, after all we went through?" He caressed the blue fabric, and his fingers left a rippling wake. "No, this may look like the Old One's tunic, but I assure you it's still with him in the ground."

Delbert's head began to swim, so he sat down at the edge of the pit.

"Time travel is like dying, or what I imagine dying will be like," said Numec. "Bang! You catch a glimpse of the entire universe, the wholeness of things. Then it's gone. Maybe that's what people mean when they see the light, when they see their whole life flash in front of them. Maybe that's what Wovoka saw when he died and came back."

Delbert thought he heard something way down on the ridge. But the road was empty, blank with snow.

"Time travel is unpredictable. Once they snip the strings, you're no longer anchored to the fabric of space and time. You might wash up anywhere, or at any time. You might even end up in more than one place at more than one time. I ended up in three different places at three different times. So there's three of us, three versions of the same person. There's the version you see standing here. There's the version we buried, the Old One. And there's the version people called the Rab Mag, Lord of the Magi."

Delbert heard it again, a fleeting hum on the wind.

"Two of us washed up close to this mountain, pulled here by its immense gravity. But the Rab Mag drifted far away. He arrived in ancient Persia. And still this mountain pulled him in, pulled him westward, always westward." Numec eyed the black case on the ground. "And in a way, he made it here."

Delbert looked up at the man towering over him. "Do you really expect me to believe any of this?"

"No. Not without the physical proof I mentioned. And for that you would need to dig up the Old One, or find the bones of the Rab Mag."

Numec reached inside his blue garment and pulled out a small leather pouch that hung around his neck. As Delbert got to his feet, Numec carefully emptied the pouch's contents into his cupped palm: five tiny brown seeds that rolled into the creases of his big hand. "These are the five tletl seeds I carry, the same seeds the Old One and the Rab Mag carried. Our task was to plant them in the past in order to ensure the existence of our future."

He returned the seeds to their pouch and slipped it back under his garment. "In my future, we teach our children that long ago the world grew wicked and corrupt. Until one day, the gods sent a messenger to warn the righteous and prepare them for a great plague only they would survive. And when that plague came and passed, the survivors rebuilt civilization in their own image. They were led by a girl, brilliant and fierce. She was called Nelhuayotl, the Foundation."

Delbert shivered. He had known his share of Indians with buhah, mystical power, men and women who could heal with a song, read the clouds, dodge bullets even. But Jason Numec's buhah was something completely different, cold and alien, terrifying.

"I am that messenger, sent by the gods to warn the righteous. I was conceived specially for the task. In one hand, I carry the plague, and in the other, I carry the blueprints for our future world, technical information our young scientists will need in order to rebuild civilization. But that information is hidden, and must remain hidden, until the plague has run its course, or else it might be used to stop it, changing the future, obliterating my world. The world I love and left behind."

Delbert glanced at the container. "Is that what I buried, the blueprints?"

"Not the blueprints themselves, but a clue to their location, I think." Numec returned to the boulder and leaned back against the cold rock. Delbert remained shivering by the pit, the container lying on the snow-dusted ground between them.

Numec spoke to the air. "I am the Rab Mag and the Old One. We are identical in body but separated in space and time. And from the moment of our separation, our minds became three, three separate wills, each free to carry out his task, or not, depending on where and when we found ourselves. The Old One found himself among an Ice Age people too primitive even to recognize the blueprints, let alone use them, so he swallowed his tletl seeds instead of planting them, and he let his blueprints die with him."

Numec frowned, the two halves of his split eyebrow nearly joining. "The Rab Mag also chose not to plant his tletl seeds, but instead of letting his blueprints die with him, he hid them away so others might use them." Numec eyed the black box. "And if I'm right, the artifact you buried says exactly where to find them."

Delbert eyed the ridge again, no longer hoping to see Demi. If the mountain was crawling with government agents like Numec said, then maybe they were on their way to the summit right now. Maybe all he had to do was buy some time. "So you don't want people finding these blueprints because they might be used to stop the virus, right?"

Numec nodded.

"Then why did the Rab Mag want to share them?"

"Because someone changed his mind." Numec got up, stepped forward and rested his big boot on the container, pinning it to the ground. He leaned forward, arms crossed on his knee. "The process of time travel left the Rab Mag in ancient Persia, Māda it was called then. There he became a god among men, Lord of the Magi. That's what Rab Mag means."

"Like the Magi from the Bible?"

Numec nodded. "That part of the Bible is true, my friend. Except the Magi weren't following a star in the sky. They were following the Rab Mag, who knew precisely when and where Jesus of Nazareth would be born. And the Rab Mag stayed with Jesus for many years, teaching the child as he grew, shaping his thoughts and philosophies."

Delbert was speechless.

The wind had let up, and the snow seemed to hang in midair, listening. "I often daydream about the conversations they had, the secrets they shared—we shared." He inhaled the brittle air, held it for a moment, then let it out. "But in the end, the student swayed the master. Jesus convinced the Rab Mag to turn away from his task, to defer judgment, to withhold the plague and preserve his blueprints so that someday all people might benefit from them."

Now, Delbert could hear a vehicle creeping up the ridge, it's engine a faint but persistent drone.

"Seeds of Salvation," Numec scoffed. "Semina sinapis. That's what Jesus called the Rab Mag's blueprints. He saw in them a means to bring about his kingdom on earth, free of want and strife, for all people. That's what he was talking about in his parable of the Mustard Seed. Not a kingdom of heaven and miracles, but an earthly kingdom, transformed by science and technology."

Numec lowered his boot and stood tall, godlike. "But I tell you, Delbert, this world will burn to the ground before that kingdom comes. This I know in my heart and in my mind."

Delbert picked up the shovel and gripped it with both hands. His shoulders burned. He had one good swing left in him, maybe two, more than Jason Numec's head could withstand, god or not. Demi would be proud.

Now they both heard it, floating up from the ridge: the high-pitched rev of a car's engine.

Numec ripped the shovel from Delbert's hand and tossed it over the precipice. Grabbing his rifle, he propped it up on the boulder. "Pick up the container and get ready to move!" Then he took aim.

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