Buzzards hang like flies in amber

In the open desert there are innumerable invisible roads—roads known only to those who know the Land of the Dead, who know how to silently scream at great velocity through its solid air where nothing else moves. Buzzards hang like flies in amber over smoke caught as motionless as a mineral, a fossil, a vein of iron deep in unmined earth. They know, these men, what earth can be eaten in the Land of the Dead, how to find its oily, scabrous water and how to build frozen fire which casts no heat or light but warms them inexplicably through memory. They know the silent greetings, the art of dissipative departure. They know the roads and crossroads in a land made of nothing but roads.

Skinwalkers. The sorcerers, necromancers of the Navaho. Feared by men who would forever seal the door of a house which death had entered once. They pose as coyotes. They hide as shadows of the dead lurking in mirrors cast of desert sand. If you go to the place where all roads cross, the navel, the pregnant belly of unfaithful change, you will see them. But be as silent and cautious as the umber air or they will catch you and sever the soles from your feet.