The only scattered cars as far as Calliope could see were maimed by trees. Calliope asked the obvious. “How is there a forest growing out of this highway?” She looked at the map. “We’re on the 180, right?”

Chance nodded.

“There should not be a forest, not according to this. The closest forest should be in Mimbres Park.” She used her pinched finger and thumb as a ruler. “Fifty miles northeast.”

Chance put his hands to his face, closed his eyes, breathed in, rubbing his hands as if clearing his eyes of what they were seeing, opened them and said, “I think we’d better keep walking. Find a usable car. Get you to your family.” He pulled her close, Eunjoo with her. “Then I need to get back to the rez.”

“What’s on the rez?”

“Answers.”

They veered around the smashed-car trees and continued walking.

For miles and miles, the road was a forest of accidents, the cars demolished from the sudden growth. She saw it. But she didn’t believe it.

Chance kept looking toward the hills, the Gilas in the distance.

“What are you looking for?” Calliope asked. “More Kachinas?”

Chance laughed ironically, a note of bitterness. “Anglos call them Kachinas but that’s not a Zuni word. We call them ko’ko. The ko’ko are our ancestors.” He turned away from the hills, stopped for a moment and looked at Calliope. “But yes, I’m looking for more. I don’t know how many ko’ko are out there, if there are others, in matter form, you know, instead of spirit.”

“There are two Suuke,” Eunjoo squeaked, walking steadily a few paces ahead.

Chance chuckled, quizzically. “That’s right, little bird. How do you know the Zuni tale?”

Eunjoo shrugged, still not looking back.

To Calliope, Chance said, “It’s a tale meant to scare children. Boys who don’t help their fathers with the animals, or girls who don’t help their mothers with the babies. They could get carried off by the Suuke to Kothluwala’wa—the mesas where they were once exiled—and eaten. If they’ve come from the tale, there should be two Suuke, husband and wife.”

Calliope’s face scrunched, her lips puckered as if he’d said something sour. “Come from the tale? Chance, we’re scientists. There has to be some logical explanation.” She clung to skepticism, couldn’t trust her experiential knowledge. Not when this experience didn’t make any sense.

“Logical or no, I’ll keep you safe.”

She bristled at his paternal tone, gripped the straps of her backpack tighter. Since she had no rebuttal about the Suuke, she muttered, “This map is old. Forest could’ve grown in the last ten years.”

“And the cars?”

“Abandoned. I don’t know. Maybe they closed this road off and we missed a sign. There are lots of ghost towns across the state. Industry shut down, the whole place shut down.”