She danced like cigarette smoke in the summertime; slow, deliberate, pleasant in the short term but carcinogenic at length. Their eyes watched from under the brim of weathered cowboy hats and her eyes flickered around the room returning every glance and disappearing in and out of the thick cloud of tobacco smoke that filled the saloon. The atmosphere was stagnant as the parched local life assessed whether she planned to quench or incinerate.
These were dry folk. They looked like drought. Chapped lips stuck to gums, skin cracked and blistered, sunken eyes glared from their sockets.
She twirled and threw back a shot of whiskey from the top of the piano, pausing to judge the character of the woman playing it. They locked eyes and the musician gave her a smile and a nod, never breaking the parlor song rhythm that her fingers heavily slammed out on the keys.
Neither of the women seemed to be from town. The dancer was lean and sharp, but healthy looking, dressed in a strange earth colored gown with red silk streaming off of her joints. The musician was a rosy cheeked portly woman with smile lines weathered into her face. She wore the thick canvas pants and leather boots common among the men around her but her shirt was clean white cotton with frills at the end of her sleeves. The dancer wore no shoes.
As the song died down, the musician stood up to take a break. None of the patrons so much as raised an eyebrow.
“My name’s Marla,” She said as she extended a frilly wrist toward the dancer. “Can I get you a drink?”
“It is good to meet you Marla.” The dancer spoke slowly, and with an indistinguishable accent. Her eyes seemed red. But perhaps that was just the sunlight coming through the dirty windows. “I would love a drink.”
“So what brings you to Drywater?” Marla struggled to make eye contact as the Dancer’s long curly black hair teased the tight skin along her collar bone.
The dancer flashed a bright smile. “You do not think I am from here? I am. Where are you from?”
The bartender interrupted unsmiling and whistling through the broken teeth he still possessed. “Bullshit she’s from here. I ain’t seen ‘er around.”
“Maybe I have been avoiding you,” the Dancer said at last. She slid the glass across the bar top and the bartender caught and refilled it, not breaking eye contact with the Dancer.
Marla stammered, seeking to regain the Dancer’s lost attention. “Well, uh, if you’re from here, how come you’re still here? Drywater is a mining town, and a small one at that. Surely a pretty woman like you would have more luck living in the big city?”
With that the two strolled out of the saloon and onto the dirt road that ran through Drywater. Marla found herself staring at the Dancer’s bare feet, they landed soft against the Earth and were not coated in the dust or dirt that caked and crusted onto her own boots. The Earth seemed to release her with every step. “Um, where are we going?”
The dancer did not look back. “To the building of the mining company.”
Marla practically had to jog to keep up. Wind began coming in strong from the East, whipping tumble weeds down the street. “I think another storm is comin’.”
The dancer laughed, “Yes, yes, the last storm.” She strolled up to the oak doors of the largest building in town. The sign out front said, “Drywater Mining Co.” She swung the door open hard and Marla followed behind. At the front desk was a young man with a thin goatee and clean clothes. He stood up as the dancer walked in. “Pardon me miss, but you’re gonna have to come back another-“
The dancer swung an arm in a fluid movement and hit the young man so hard in the face that Marla could hear his skull give a sickening pop and as he slumped to the floor she heard a wet gurgle and a stink as the young man’s bowels released.
The dancer turned right and climbed a short flight of stairs up to the second story pf the building. Marla stared at the broken young man with her mouth agape, but quickly followed.
Upstairs was an office space, with one large desk that the dancer had an older fat man pinned to. She hissed in a language that Marla had never heard, and as the old man pleaded, the dancer gripped his throat with her left hand and raised her right hand in the air. Sunlight silhouetted her fingers, which danced through the dust upturned but the struggle, and her little finger bubbled and cracked while bending in impossible ways. The dancer hummed and hissed with her eyes closed, hips moving to an imperceptible beat.
Marla watched in shock as the beautiful dancer’s finger turned into a scorpion’s tail, which gave a dramatic flourish and disappeared into the old man’s mouth. His eyes bulged and watered as he screamed silently. As his body went slack, Marla noticed the skin near his eyes and lips turning black.
With a satisfied look, the dancer withdrew as if nothing had happened, and wiped her little finger on a stand of red silk. She strode past Marla, down the stairs, past the young man’s body and out the door. Marla looked from the body to the staircase twice and ran after the dancer as fast as she could. As she ran out the door, strong hands grabbed her shoulders, stopping her completely, and the dancer pressed her mouth against Marla’s in a kiss so passionate that Marla forgot the bodies behind her and melted into the woman before her, their tongues becoming intertwined and the dancer’s somehow wrapping around Marla’s several times like a tiny serpent. The dancer’s tongue pulled hard as it unraveled back into the dancer’s mouth, keeping Marla’s mouth pressed close.
Marla was vaguely aware of the dust storm kicking up around them. She could hear the townspeople scurrying for cover and shuttering windows. She could feel the sand stinging her face, but she no longer seemed confined by her body. She was warm, comfortable, and felt a deep glow of ease emanating from within her.
The dancer pulled her face back, and looked deep into Marla’s eyes. They both smiled and the dancer gave a long farewell kiss before backing away off of the mining company’s porch.
“Wait,” Marla shouted, holding her hat to her head, “I don’t know your name! Why did you want me to follow you?”
The dancer began to twirl and slide into the dust storm. Marla heard her voice as if the dancer was whispering in her ear. “Only the wind may speak my name and only the Earth knows it.”
