Patty was sure she’d see the lights of el Paso soon.  And with the lights she’d be able to forget the thing that was pursuing her.  She glanced in the rear-view mirror again, sure that the dreadful face was still back there, but only a reassuring dull glow from the evening sky greeted her.
        What did he say he was?  Some sort of god or something.  El Ciego.  The Blind One.  But he had eyes that still burned into Patty’s mind.  How could he be blind with eyes like that?
  
She glanced down at the bundle on
the seat: twelve long ropes of shining black hair, each tied with a special cord in a secret knot.  El Ciego said she was to take them back into the desert where the women would be waiting.  It sounded like madness.  She knew she’d never be able to find her way across the great Sonoran Desert and to that mountain.  She wasn’t that brave.
        In el Paso she’d give the hair to the police and tell them the story.  They’d probably tell her that it was a familiar one—that the “god” was really a harmless old coot who told his tales to scare the tourists.
        But the hair?  Where’d he get all those hanks of human hair?  Or was it human?  She was no scientist.
        Maybe someone’s been killing these women and I’ll be a suspect, she thought.  With sudden resolve, Patty slowed and pulled off onto the hard gypsum shoulder.  She opened the door and reached for the hair.  Out you go now.  
  
A sudden cramp brought a cry of
pain.  Her hand refused to close on the bundle.  Her fingers were spread apart painfully wide and bent back away from her thumb until she thought they would snap off.  A single, sharp thought pushed all others from her mind: Take the hair to my people!
  
The flat yellow desert was giving way to low, bald ridges in the morning light.  Patty had driven five hours after stopping for gas just south of Juarez.  She wondered if the two cans in the trunk would get her back.  But she knew she was near the right place now.  The voice hadn’t spoken to her again, but she knew in her mind that he had been guiding her and that her ordeal was nearly over.
        Then she saw them: a dozen old women sitting in a semicircle by the road.  At first Patty thought they were having a powwow or something, until she realized they were facing outward, away from one another.  Patty pulled over and parked.
  
One of the women rose, dusted off
her dark cloak, and hobbled painfully toward the car.  It’s just a bunch of old women.  Patty opened the door to speak to her, but the woman ignored her and reached for the hair.  Patty shrank away from the woman’s wrinkled claw as it touched this hank and that, finally selecting one. With a grunt of pleasure, the woman turned and strode away.
        Patty thought the silence would drive her mad as the strange procession continued, each woman in turn taking up one of the ropes of hair.  She wondered how they knew which was theirs.  If they did.  But each one seemed to be extraordinarily careful to get the correct one.
        Finally there was only one bundle of hair left.  It was that one, the awful, long, almost alive rope of springy black hair which grew from a bit of…what?  Scalp?  Something hard and black and ugly, that Patty was wary of touching.
  
Had it been only three days since that strange creature had suddenly appeared at her side at the rim of the crater and fixed her with his deep, insistent eyes?  Patty couldn’t even remember what he said or what his voice sounded like, but she could still see, almost feel and hear those magic eyes.  The eyes of the Blind One.
        Patty looked to see if any more women were coming, but they were walking away, down the dusty road, not talking, seeming not to notice one another.
        If I wait much longer I’ll be driving back in the dark again. She reached for the remaining bundle of hair.  Should I touch it?
        To her surprise, the hair seemed warm, as if it were alive.  She ran her fingers through its shining, sensuous strands.  I can’t throw this away.  What a story I’ll have to tell when I get back.  She reluctantly dropped the hair back on the seat and started the engine.  Turning around in the narrow road took a bit of maneuvering, but in a minute Patty and her hair were on their way north.
        When it became completely dark Patty pulled off the road.  She needed to rest a while, take a catnap. The cold would wake her up.  She moved the hair over so she could lie on her side across the front seat.  Just an hour or so…  
  
She awoke with a start.  Something was shaking the car!  Guardedly, she rose and looked out the windshield.  She must have been dreaming, but who wouldn’t have dreams after what she’d experienced?
        The car was shaken again.  This time she peered out of each window.  Nothing.
        The wind.  It must have been one of those little whirlwinds—the polverados?  She shook herself awake and got behind the wheel.  In the distance she could see the first pearly pink light of the new day.  And with it the scenes of the night before faded.  Did it really happen?  Did I actually drive all those miles to deliver hair? Her eyes settled on the remaining hank.  Yes.
  
Patty reached the border about three o’clock and was soon back in her little apartment.  She debated taking the hair in with her, then decided to leave it.  She was almost afraid to touch it again—it was so warm, like an animal.
        Sleep came quickly after the long, squinting drive across the white desert under a white sky.  It wasn’t until noon the next day that she even stirred.
        After she awoke and got cleaned up, she reviewed her notes.  Maybe she could sell the story.  “The Magic Hair”?  Or just “The Hair”?  I’d better go out there and get it before a neighbor sees it and thinks I scalped someone.
        She went down to the car and unlocked the door.  Can I touch it?  Does it have a spell on it?  She reached in, grasped it tightly and stood back to

close the door.  It’s only a hank of hair.  And it’s daylight, Patty… That makes all the difference…
        Back in the kitchen, she gently curled the hair into a circle and put it in an empty cookie canister.  There!
  
Catching up on five day’s work was a nightmare.  The mainframe was down and Patty spent half her time answering questions from people who were trying to remember how to run their own desktops.  “What does it mean when it says this, Patty?” and “My screen’s empty.  What did I do, Patty?  Is it serious?”
        Then it was over.  The goofs had all left at five and Patty had a few hours of unpaid time to catch up on her own projects.  But after a while, she knew she was making mistakes and finally called it a day.
  
The first thing she did when she
walked in the door was head for the refrigerator.  She opened a can of beer, and spotted a cold half of a pizza.  An elegant late supper.  By ten she was
in bed, her eyes closed, gently snoring as career women are allowed to do when they’ve worked two days in one.
        Vague sounds penetrated her sleep.  It was coming from outside.  It had to be Mike and Louise, her upstairs neighbors; they worked at the Fort and left early to stop for breakfast on the way.  But Patty decided to invest her breakfast time in sleep.  She reset her alarm and rolled over lazily.
  
It was a dream.  She was being held, cuddled, by a warm and gentle body lying with hers.  The sunlight beaming through the window brought her back into glaring reality.  Who was he? she wondered.  Patty, you ought to get a guy.  Or a cat…
  
That night she awoke to the same warm, cozy, cuddly feeling.  Only this time it was real! She sat up in bed and groped for the light switch.  What in hell?  But it was nothing.  Another dream?  But it had felt so real.  She turned off the light and slid down the slope to Dreamland again.
  
Patty screamed, rolled out of bed and aimed toward the door.  She flipped on the overhead light and grabbed the baseball bat a kid had given her after it got split in a game.  But there was no one there.  No body in her bed, no one hiding in the starkly furnished room, no sound of anyone escaping out the window.  Just Patty’s heart, pounding so loud she thought her ears would bleed.
        I’ve gotta get hold of myself.  This is spooky.  She carefully stripped and remade the bed.  They did have lizards and rats in the area, but no rat would be snuggling up to her, she thought.
        Then she saw the hair—lying on the floor by the bed.  Not in the kitchen in its canister.
        Someone’s here!
        She made a thorough search of the apartment.  The windows were barred and the door was still locked.  Nothing had been disturbed, not even the canister atop the refrigerator.
        Patty picked up the hair and studied it.  How’d you get out of that can?  Maybe I forgot…
        Suddenly the hair curled itself around her bare arm.  Disgusting!  She shook it off and jumped back; then, feeling foolish, she picked it up again.  How silly.  It wouldn’t hurt her.  It was just twisted in that can.
        Again, it curled around her arm, but this time Patty let it.  It felt good, like a kitten’s fur—or something.  It moved slowly up her arm, soft as a kiss.  And then, bolder.  It touched her neck and cheek.  At first she recoiled, but it seemed to wait until she’d relaxed.
        My very own massager.  Must be the humidity of my body that makes it move.  Hmm, it does feel good.
        Patty was still holding it when she got back into bed.  It was soothing, like a teddy bear.  And she slept soundly the rest of the night.  In the morning, she made the bed and gently laid the hair on the bolster.  “There!  Now be good.”
  
On the way to work, Patty tried to analyze the events of the previous evening.  She had been feeling, well, alone, lately.  No guys for a while.  Her intelligence scared them off.  And a woman has to have somebody, right?
        But a hank of hair?  You know how that sounds, Patty?
        She drove into the parking lot.  A hank of hair?  Well, hell, some folks have their “blankies.”  No harm in that.  And some have partners, people partners.  Gals have guys.  Patty shrugged.
  
 It wasn’t just the soft feel of the hair; it was the way it worked itself all over her body.  Slowly, like the gradual twisting and untwisting of hair when it’s dried and wetted.  Absolutely natural.  The humidity was low and apartment dry this time of year, and Patty’s body was moist.  No mystery there.
        Funny how a piece of hair can make a woman feel so good.  If a guy knew that touch, that special little rub-tickle, he could have all the women he could use.
        Suddenly, a chilling thought crept through her ecstasy.  What’s going to happen when the rains come?  What am I going to do then?
  
The hair caressed her patiently and skillfully, and soon Patty forgot about the rains.  Under the steady strokes, her body rose in a languorous arch.  The rains might never come.
 
                         About The Author
  
        Lorin Emery, a retired engineer with many patents to his name, lives with his wife Mary and his cat Rachel in Albuquerque.  He has been writing since Methuselah handed him a tablet, and has achieved a modicum of success in writing short stories, with more than 340 acceptances to his credit.  He has also written several novels, poetry, and has contributed to two encyclopedias.  Along the way, he was editor/publisher of several zines, including FAYRDAW, la Pierna Tierna, and UpDare?  His non-press hobbies include teaching a creative writing class to seniors and inventing gadgets. 
        He is also a guest columnist for Calliope.
    
 
                                  Copyright © Lorin Emery