Locking the storage shed securely and driving back to the downtown section of Farmington, the two located the town's Walmart store. There they entered with a mission: to purchase supplies sufficient to investigate the contents of the boxes and crates inside Blake's father's unknown trove of . . . questionable objects.

Filling up a plastic handbasket with screwdrivers, flashlights, a pair of pliers, a hammer, a small wood saw and a large hunting knife, the two carried their purchases into the store cafeteria to order sandwiches and drinks. While waiting for their order, Blake's cell phone rang.

"Blake? It's Stephanie. Where are you?"

"Oh yeah . . . Hi, Steph. Well actually . . ."

He looked over at Russel.

"Somewhere out of state, to be honest," he said under his breath.

Russel nodded and gave a throat-cutting sign to his friend, indicating he should hang up the phone. It was the girl Blake had been seeing recently at the university, and fairly regularly. Russel obviously did not like her, possibly for dominating so much of his friend's time over the past month. And now it was their critically important Spring Break.

"What do you mean . . . out of state, Blake? I thought you said you'd be in San Diego this week. I'm there with a few girlfriends and wanted to hook up with you by now. The partying is already happening here, Blake."

"Yeah, Steph. Well something's come up . . . involving my family. I'm here in Arizona, and . . ."

"New Mexico!" Russel emphatically corrected.

"Yes . . . New Mexico, that is."

"Who are you with?"

"My friend. Russ . . ."

"And five cheerleaders from the University of New Mexico!" Russel shouted, menacingly while smiling.

Blake covered he phone and walked over to the nearby housewares section of the store for better privacy.

"What's his problem, Blake? Hey, are you really partying over there instead of here?"

"No. Hardly partying, Stephanie. My dad died a little while back and, well . . . I'm just here going through his stuff for my mom."

"Oh. Sorry, Blake. And she's not with you?"

"No. It's kind of complicated. But I'll be coming back soon."

"Alright. So . . .your coming to San Diego. Right? Liked we planned?"

"Russ and I should be on our way there . . . maybe by this afternoon or tonight."

"Well then . . . how long before I see you here?"

Blake looked over at the cafeteria. He could see Russel pretending to be stabbing himself in the chest with an invisible knife.

"It will be at least . . . a full day of driving. Two days most likely. Where are you girls staying?"

"In Pacific Beach. Near the Over the Line Tournament."

He could hear a couple of females screaming and laughing in the background.

"Oh my God! Pretty crazy goings on here already, Blake. But I'm saving myself for you, you know."

"Alright. Just watch the binge drinking over there. I'll call you tonight. Don't want to hear any . . . guy's voice nearby, OK?"

"That depends. On how late you get here." She laughed.

"Great."

"Don't worry, sweetie. We girls are watching out for each other."

"Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of . . ."

She laughed again, and then screamed something hysterically at her friends.

"See you soon in San Diego," Blake said over the noise. "Just watch out for the wolves over there . . . the two-legged kind."

Laughter again. "Actually, the place is crawling with them. Right girls?"

There was a unison female cheer.

"Nice to know."

"Just get here soon, lover boy!"

"I'm working on that."

Another series of screams and shrill laughter filled the room where Stephanie was calling from.

"Bye," she abruptly said, and the phone shut off.

Blake walked back to find Russel was already eating the sandwiches and drinking one of the beers they had planned to take back with them to the storage shed.

"Sorry, Captain. Just had to eat something, That so-called breakfast  wore off pretty fast."

"That's because you're a goddamned animal."

"So . . . what does Miss Stephanie, your current dream queen, have to say?"

"Wants to know why we're not in San Diego yet. What else?"

"See? I knew there was something about that girl I liked."

"Right, Russ. It's pretty obvious you're not a big fan of her."

"Look. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Right?  And who am I to tell you this girl is just out for fun and is going to use you, big time?"

"Jesus, Russ. Have I ever been critical of the girls you go out with? Mr. Expert lover?"

"Well, that's because the girls I choose . . . and who choose me . . . are simply, goddesses."

Blake stared back at him blankly. "Russ . . . I've got to go back inside and grab something I forgot."

"Yeah? What?"

"Some rubber boots. Because the bullshit is getting pretty thick in here!"

They both laughed.

"Come on, Russ. Let's pay for this stuff and get back over to the shed."

"If it means we're all that closer to San Diego, I'm in, man."

"It does. So let's go."

* * *

During their second approach to the storage facility complex, there was no interception at the open gate by the security guard in his golf cart. Possibly, as Blake assumed, because they were already being observed again on video cameras.

As Blake unlocked the door and rolled it up to enter, the two brought in with them what was left of their lunch and the various tools to break into the containers. Opening his first beer and taking a long drink, Blake used a hammer and screwdriver to pry off the top off one of the wooden boxes.

Inside it were a stack of plastic trays, air-tight and containing what appeared to be sheaths of colored A4 sized photos. In the first tray he opened, he took the handful of photographs out and began looking through them in the light of the open door.

Each seemed to be a high-resolution print of a rock wall, with primitive paintings on its surface. All of the images depicted roughly the same stunning motif—that of human like people in the presence of either otherworldly beings, and/or nearby. circular objects hovering in the sky or on the ground near the characters.

"What the hell is going on here?"  Blake asked seriously, under his breath.

"You tell me and we'll both know, pal," Russel replied, equally subdued.

Photo after photo, in all the trays, were pictures drawn on rock faces. They were rendered in basic colors of what were undoubtedly beings from some other dream-like world. Yet they freely shared the reality—time and space, of the Native Americans shown in the images next to them. Prevalent in many of these photos, were the now familiar round or cylindrical objects floating or gliding effortlessly above the characters in the heavens.

"So . . . is this the crazy shit your father was collecting out here? In this desert, man? For so many years, Blake?"

"It definitely seems that way. Look at all these boxes . . . and heavy crates. Are they all full of photos?" Blake took another drink of his beer, then actively took the hammer and screwdriver over to a larger box.

Opening the cover, he found a series of smaller, wooden boxes stacked neatly inside. Upon opening one of them—easily, as it was merely tied closed with string, he found a colorful and fanciful doll inside. The doll was the length of a laptop computer, and represented a sturdy adult with natural human proportions The figure was dressed in highly imaginative clothing, a colorful costume of sorts. As Blake eventually opened all twenty of the small boxes in the crate, he could see that no two effigies of figures were exactly the same in their detailed dress. Most wore some elaborate head ware with deer or buffalo horns. Some a shroud of colorful woven material. The faces of the dolls were painted in Indian face-paint styles.

"This is all too crazy!"  Blake said emphatically, stepping back from the pile of dolls on the floor. "We have to get some explanation of all this."

"It's all too scary, if you ask me, Blake. Let's just boogie out of here and get on the road. Maybe you don't need to know what this is all about. Can you live with that, man?"

"No way, Russ!  How can I leave this crazy place without knowing what gong on here? OK, my old man may have been a looser . . . disturbed even. But this shit he was into is even crazier!  Who could be ready for what this shit is saying here? About the Indians out there. About the fucking universe!"

"Hey man. Take it easy . . . Drink your beer. Let's get a plan and just move on."

Blake behaved as if he had not even heard his friend. He dropped the last doll onto the pile on the floor and walked over to the powerless refrigerator once more. He opened the door and looked in at the perfectly preserved painted clay jars on shelves. He then opened the freezer compartment and inside saw a metal utility box, like all else, secured by its own lock. He took the gray sturdy container out of the small compartment and set it down in front of both he and Russel.

"What do you suppose could be so important in here?" he asked, almost angrily."

"Beats me, Blake . . . Open it." He handed his friend the pair of pliers.

Blake took them and began to actively twist and attack the small lock housing on the metal box lid. He twisted it back and forth until it finally broke off. When he slowly opened it, both looked inside cautiously. There were only several pieces of what appeared to be fragments of aluminum foil. A paper-thin metal sheeting, no bigger than Blake's hand in width an length. He reached in and collected the five or six pieces of flat gray metal. They seemed weightless in his hands as he laid them carefully onto the lid of a large wooden crate.

"What the hell is this stuff?" he asked his friend as he put the jagged pieces out in front of them. Suddenly, as if each was a magnet, they quickly moved together on the wooden surface, closing the gaps between each fragment."

"Whoa!  . . . Did you see that?"

Blake carefully separated each piece again from the others and in several moments, the pieces again quickly reunited, as if trying to form a single sheet.

"What the fuck is this stuff?"  Russel asked, picking up a single fragment and holding it in his hand. "It's like . . . tin foil.  But . . . totally as light as air!"

He tried to tear it, but could not. He then tied to crumple the piece up in a ball in his fist. But as he released the piece, it snapped back into a flat shape again, showing no signs of wrinkles where it had been temporarily compressed.

"What the fuck, man!"  Blake said, separating a piece again from the others by himself and testing the remarkable property as Russel had. Both watched in amazement as the ball of foil quickly snapped back to a perfectly flat fragment, like the others, then moved on its own accord like a magnet in contact with the others.

"This is too goddamned unreal!" Blake finally said, gathering up the piece of material and placing them back in the metallic box. He closed the top and put the container back in its place in the freezer compartment. He then shut the refrigerator door and looked at Russel with a perplexed look, bordering on fear."

"Come on, man. I've seen enough of this stuff. I don't even want to look in any of these other boxes. Not until I get some answers from someone who may know more about this shit."

"Yeah. But like who, Blake?"

"The people my father knew back on the Navajo Reservation. They knew him better than anyone, right?. They must know for sure what all this means. I have to go back there and talk to the sheriff."

Jesus, Captain. You think he's gonna tell you anything? He even said those old guys . . . the elders . . . they might not even talk to you."

"It's all I've got, Russ. I have to at least try. I'll be forever creeped-out by this bad dream if I don't at least find out. Learn from someone what all this stuff is . . . and why it's here."

His friend was respectably silent. He helped Blake collect the tools, lock the storage room, and patiently sat in the car as Blake drove off beyond all the speed limits back across the desert.

Soon returning over the New Mexico-Arizona border, they passed through the majestic Monument Valley once again, in is monolithic spender. Bathed in the afternoon light. Up ahead they could see the roadsign which read:

Kayenta, Arizona.

Population 5,189.

Entering Navajo Nation Territorial Lands.

* * *