Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett

“They’re waiting for something to die.”
    Manuel Bernantio turned in his saddle, and shaded his eyes with a thin brown palm. “No,” he said. “Some animal is dead already.”
    Wiki wondered how he knew that. Surely, if there was a corpse, the vultures would have been on the ground, indulging in their ghastly banquet? Then Bernantio added, “If something drowns in the laguna salada, the vultures cannot scent it. They know there has been death, as they saw the last throes, but because of the salt they cannot locate the body. It often happens.”
    Laguna salada —lake of brine. “Is that where they collect the salt for these dunes?” Wiki asked. He could see many ancient wagon-wheel ruts leading in that direction, and salt-rimmed potholes made by the hooves of many cattle and horses.
    The rastreador didn’t answer. Instead, as he looked that way, too, his bearing became alert, as if he had suddenly discerned something he had missed before. Dismounting, he gave his bridle to a comrade to hold, and then cast back and forth about the ruts and potholes for what seemed a long time. Then he returned, and said, “The man who rode the horse that favored its hindfoot traveled on to the salinas. ”
    â€œAlone?”
    Manuel shrugged. “It is impossible to tell.”
    The sun was lowering, turning the distant heights to purple, and a breeze came up off the river. The short hairs on the back of Wiki’s neck lifted in a shiver, and he abruptly didn’t want to go anywhere near where the vultures circled. However, though Bernantio’s mouth, beneath the flourishing mustachios, was as straight as ever, Wiki knew that the rastreador was deeply chagrined that he had taken so long to see what was now obvious to him.
    Back in the Bay of Islands, loss of face was an important issue, so Wiki understood how he felt. To allow Bernantio to regain mana —prestige—he said, “Would you think it was possible for you to do us the great favor of tracing those prints, even as it grows dark?”
    Still, the rastreador was expressionless. However, Bernantio inclined his head in acknowledgment as he agreed, “I believe I can do it.”
    Without another word, he remounted his horse and set off, with the others following in a line, as before. This time, Wiki was in the rear. As they progressed over a semibarren plain, where the short, scrubby bushes were armed with increasingly long thorns, the wagon ruts became deeper, having run through mud that had later baked dry in the sun. The horseman, obviously, had avoided these, though Wiki could not pick his tracks out of the general muddle. In places the furrows were crusted with salt, where puddles had become brackish and then dried out.
    Abruptly, he became aware of a shocking smell, like putrefying eggs. His stomach clenched, and he expected to see the legs of some poor dead beast sticking up ahead. Instead, a flat shimmer appeared in the dun of the plain. It was like a vast plate, white and almost featureless, a reflection of the paling sky. The vultures still circled in the far reaches of the clouds, with a long line of pink flamingos arrowing south below them, but were yet some distance off.
    Then Wiki understood that the great white shimmer was the salinas —a lake of solidified salt. The little cavalcade had stopped where the plain ended and the laguna salada began. As he joined them, they were sitting still in their saddles, staring over the wide lagoon, which was whiter than ice and eerily still, frozen in space and time. It was possible to see where there had been ripples in the original brine, which had set so fast the movement had been caught forever.
    At his mare’s feet there was a thick ribbon of black mud, studded with giant crystals that gleamed in shades of yellow and green. “Padre del sal,” said Manuel Bernantio, pointing at the strange prisms. The band of mud marked the boundary of