The Dust Whisperer

The Water's Keeper ~ 1

The dust always spoke to Eliza Blackwood. It whispered secrets in the drift of particles caught in sunlight. It told stories in the patterns it left on windowsills, and sometimes, when she was very careful, it would dance for her between her outstretched fingers.

But it had been three years since she'd let it dance. Three years since the people of Redemption Creek had watched her husband die of consumption. They turned their suspicion toward her when the drought came. Three years since they'd stood outside her cabin with torches, whispering that no natural woman could remain untouched by the dust sickness that had taken so many.

"Dust witch," they'd called her. If only they knew how right they were.

Eliza adjusted the wide brim of her hat as the stagecoach rumbled toward Prosperity, New Mexico Territory. The wooden sign announcing the town's name was almost comical in its optimism as they passed. Even from inside the coach, she could feel the thirst of the land beneath them. A deep, resonant ache that made her own throat tighten in sympathy.

"First time in Prosperity, ma'am?" The man across from her wore a banker's suit and gambler's eyes.

"Just passing through," she lied.

In truth, she'd heard rumors about Prosperity. How the once-thriving silver mining town had fallen into a drought so severe that people whispered of curses. How the mighty Blackwater Mining Company somehow kept its operations running while the town slowly died of thirst.

Most travelers were leaving Prosperity. Eliza had always moved toward trouble, not away. It was her greatest strength. Possibly her deepest flaw, according to her mother.

The stagecoach lurched to a stop on the town's main street. It kicked up a cloud that made the other passengers cough and cover their faces. Eliza alone remained still. Each mote that settled on her skin was a greeting.

Patience, she told the dust. Not here. Not yet.

The town that greeted her was a contradiction. Main street showed signs of former prosperity. A two-story hotel, a proper bank building, several saloons, all wearing the patina of desperation.

Water barrels stood padlocked outside the businesses. The communal well in the square had an armed guard. Town folk moved with the slow, deliberate conservation of those who knew the value of every drop of sweat.

"Water's ten cents a cup at the Silverado," the stagecoach driver told her as he handed down her single leather bag. "Don't try to bargain. Price went up again last week."

Eliza nodded her thanks and headed toward the hotel. She needed information. In towns like this, the best place to start was wherever people gathered to drink away their troubles.

The Silverado Saloon smelled of stale beer and unwashed bodies. Not unusual for a mining town saloon. The underlying tension, however, was palpable. Men hunched over their drinks as if afraid someone might snatch them away. Near the piano, a heated argument broke out over a spilled whiskey.

"Looking for a room or a drink?" The barkeep, a tall woman with iron-gray hair, asked as she arrived.

"Work, actually," Eliza replied. "Heard you might need help."

The woman's stormy eyes narrowed as she sized Eliza up and down. She took her simple but clean dress, her steady gaze, and the calluses on her hands.

"Can you pour drinks without spilling and keep your hands to yourself when the miners get friendly?"

"Yes to both."

"Five dollars a week, plus a room upstairs and one meal a day. Water costs extra for everyone, owner's rules."

"Whose rules?" Eliza asked.

"Edward Blackwater's rules. Everything in Prosperity belongs to Blackwater now. The mine, the hotel, this saloon, even the damn clouds, seems like." The barkeep's voice lowered. "You got a name?"

"Liza," she said, dropping half of her surname as she always did in new towns. "Liza Black."

"I'm Mae. You start tonight. Room 3 is yours. It ain't much, but it's got a lock."

That night, as Eliza moved between tables delivering drinks, she listened. In saloons, people spoke freely, especially when thirsty and angry.

"...third well gone dry in a month..."

"...Blackwater's men turned the Mendez family away at the company well, even with their little one sick..."

"...rain clouds come right up to the valley ridge and then just stop, like there's an invisible wall..."

"...miners say there's more water down in the deep shaft than they've ever seen, but it's all being pumped somewhere else..."

By closing time, her feet ached and her dress was stained with beer, but her mind was full of useful fragments. Something was very wrong in Prosperity. It all centered on the Blackwater Mine.

In her small room, Eliza locked the door and allowed herself a moment of release. She removed her gloves and held her palm up, calling to the dust that had settled on the floorboards and windowsill. It rose in a gentle spiral. It danced between her fingers like an affectionate cat.

Show me, she whispered silently to it. Show me the mine.

The dust swirled faster. It formed shapes in the air. Tunnels that bore deep into the earth. Men moved like ants through the passages. Water... so much water, far below the surface, more than could be natural in this drought-stricken land.

She closed her hand and the dust settled. There was water beneath Prosperity, a lot of it, but none was reaching town. Tomorrow, she would need to see that mine for herself.

The Blackwater Mining Company occupied the north end of town. A sprawling compound of offices, processing buildings, and the mine itself. A dark maw cut into the hillside and reinforced with heavy timber. A tall fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the entire operation. Armed guards at the main gate.

Eliza approached openly, dressed in her most respectable clothes. A story ready on her lips about looking for her fictional brother who worked in the mine. The guard listened impassively.

"No visitors. Company policy."

"Please, I've come all the way from Santa Fe," she pleaded, playing the part of a concerned sister.

"Take it up with Mr. Blackwater if you want, but he won't be back until tomorrow. No one goes in without authorization."

Eliza thanked him and walked away. She noted the guard rotations and the gaps in the fence line. She would return tonight, but she wouldn't be using the gate.

As dusk fell, she prepared in her room. She removed her serving dress and changed into dark trousers and a shirt she kept hidden in the false bottom of her travel bag. She bound her hair back and smudged dirt on her cheeks. From a distance, in the dark, she could pass for one of the miners.

It was the dust she needed most now.

Eliza knelt in the center of the room and placed both palms flat on the floor. She closed her eyes and called to it. Not just the dust in her room, but all the particles for yards around. The dust that settled in cracks and corners, earth and sand ground to powder by boots and wagon wheels. All that would listen.

It came to her. It slipped under the door & filtered through the window. Drawn to her like iron to a magnet. As it gathered around her hands, she whispered to it, instructing it, infusing it with her will. Then she stood and opened the window.

Go, she commanded. Find the water.

The dust cloud slipped out into the night, a faint shadow against the stars. It would be her scout, her eyes where she couldn't yet go.

She waited by the window. Her mind connected to the traveling dust. She received impressions, the warmth of bodies around campfires, the coolness of empty streets, the hard barrier of the fence around the mine. Then the dust found a gap, slipped through, and descended into the earth through an air shaft.

Deep in the mine, it encountered moisture. More moisture than should exist in this parched land. And something else. Something that made the dust tremble and scatter in confusion.

Eliza gasped and clutched the windowsill as the connection wavered. There was water below the mine, yes. But it wasn't natural. It was contained. Constrained. Suffering.

It was alive.

She called her dust back. Her mind raced. There was only one explanation that made sense with what she'd experienced. Edward Blackwater had captured a water spirit. One of the elemental beings her mother had told her about in those childhood stories. Myths to most, but Eliza knew better. If the dust spoke to her, why couldn't water speak to others?

Capturing such a being and imprisoning it... that would explain the drought, the unnatural movement of the rain clouds. Blackwater wasn't just hoarding water; he was holding hostage the very essence of it.

Eliza paced her small room. Confronting Blackwater directly would be suicide. She needed evidence. She needed to find the water spirit. Tonight.

---

The mine's fence proved little obstacle for a woman who could command the earth beneath it. Eliza called to the dust and sand, which created a small sinkhole beneath one section of fence. Just large enough for her to slip under and then refill behind her.

Inside the compound, she moved from shadow to shadow. Summoning the feeling through her boots which buildings held the most activity and which were empty. The main shaft entrance was guarded, but she could sense another way down with air vents and emergency exits that all mines required.

She found one such exit hidden behind a processing shed. The narrow shaft had a ladder bolted to one side. She descended into darkness approximatelythree steps. Eliza struck a match and lit the small lantern she'd brought along, then began her climb down.

The mine stretched deeper than she'd expected. Level after level of tunnels branched off from the main shaft. She followed the pull of moisture. Descended further until she reached a level where the walls were damp to the touch. The air here was heavy, charged, like the moment before a thunderstorm.

Voices echoed from somewhere ahead. Eliza extinguished her lantern and crept forward in darkness. She let the dust guide her.

"...check the seals again. Mr. Blackwater's coming tomorrow for a demonstration, and he wants to show those government men what his water control system can do."

"Still don't seem right, Perkins. Keeping it down here like this. The Navajo workers won't even come to this level anymore. Say it's bad medicine."

"That's why they're Navajo and we're getting rich. Now check those pressure gauges and let's get back up top."

Eliza pressed herself against the wall as the men passed. Their lantern light briefly illuminating the tunnel. When they were gone, she continued forward until she reached a heavy metal door with a spinning wheel lock.

Beyond this door lay the source of the moisture. The presence. She placed her hand on the metal and nearly recoiled at the vibration of misery that pulsed through it.

The lock was complex. But locks were made of metal, and metal came from earth. Eliza called to the dust particles inside the mechanism, feeling out its shape, its weaknesses. With careful pressure, she manipulated the tiny grains, pushing and pulling until she heard the satisfying click of tumblers falling into place.

The door swung open to reveal a chamber carved from living rock. At its center stood a cylindrical glass tank, twenty feet high and ten feet across, filled with swirling, luminescent blue water that moved in patterns no natural liquid should form.

Within the water, a shape shifted. It appeared human, then flowed into pure current. But always radiated a deep, resonant anguish. It echoed on Eliza's bones.

The water spirit.

Around the tank, copper pipes and valves fed into complex machinery. Gauges and dials lined the walls, and notebooks filled with calculations sat on a nearby desk. Edward Blackwater had built himself a water control system with a captive elemental at its heart.

Eliza approached the tank carefully. The spirit inside turned toward her. Where a face might be, two glowing points of blue light regarded her.

"I want to help you," she whispered.

The water moved. It pressed against the glass. A voice that wasn't a voice filled her mind, speaking in the language of rushing streams and pounding rain.

EARTH-TOUCHED. YOU HEAR. OTHERS DO NOT HEAR.

"Yes, I hear you," Eliza replied. "What has he done to you?"

TRAPPED. BOUND. PAIN. THE SKY CALLS BUT I CANNOT ANSWER. THE LAND THIRSTS BUT I CANNOT QUENCH.

"How can I free you?"

The spirit's form pressed against the glass again. Eliza saw intricate symbols etched into the metal base of the tank and repeated on the copper pipes. Binding symbols, drawn from multiple traditions, some she recognized from her mother's teachings, others foreign to her.

BREAK THE CIRCLE. RETURN ME TO THE SKY.

Eliza examined the symbols. Breaking them would release the spirit, but the backlash of power might collapse the mine with her in it. And if Blackwater had invested so much in this capture, he wouldn't let it go easily.

She needed time, and she needed a plan.

"I'll come back tomorrow," she promised. "When I do, be ready to run."

---

Eliza spent the next day serving drinks at the Silverado while listening for information about Blackwater's return. Soon enough, the news spread. The owner was back in town with government officials from Santa Fe. They planned a demonstration of his "revolutionary irrigation system."

Mae noticed her interest. "I'd stay clear of the mine tomorrow if I were you," the older woman warned. "Whenever Blackwater does one of his demonstrations, strange things happen. Last time, we had a flash flood down Main Street on a cloudless day."

"What exactly is he demonstrating?" Eliza asked.

"Some contraption that's supposed to bring water to the desert. He's claiming he can end droughts across the territory. The government men eat it up, but notice we're still dying of thirst here while he sells the rights elsewhere."

That night, Eliza returned to her room and prepared. This would require more than simple dust manipulation. She needed to call on skills she hadn't used since her mother secretly taught her. Abilities that had made the people of Redemption Creek fear her.

She sat cross-legged on the floor and opened a small leather pouch she kept hidden in her boot. Inside was a mixture of earth from her birthplace, red clay from the river where her mother had first taught her to listen to the elements, and ash from the fire that had claimed her family home.

Eliza sprinkled it in a circle around herself and began to whisper. The dust rose and swirled. Not just dancing now, transforming, hardening, becoming an extension of her will. By dawn, she was ready. Exhausted, but armed with powers the likes of which she hadn't called upon in years.

---

The demonstration at the Blackwater Mine drew quite a crowd. Townsfolk hoping for relief from the drought, government officials in fancy suits, and miners given the day off to create a festive atmosphere. A stage had been erected near the main offices, with pipes leading from it toward the mine shaft.

Eliza moved through the crowd, a shawl covering her hair. Her eyes took in every detail. Edward Blackwater himself stood on stage. A tall man with a neat beard and expensive clothes. The perfect picture of a successful businessman bringing progress to the frontier.

"Gentlemen, ladies," he addressed the crowd, "what you're about to witness will change the future of the American West. Drought will become a thing of the past. My patented Blackwater Hydraulic Control System draws upon untapped subterranean resources to deliver water anywhere, anytime, regardless of natural conditions."

He gestured grandly, and a valve was turned. Water began to flow from a pipe into a large glass container, crystal clear and unnaturally vibrant.

"This is just the beginning," Blackwater continued. "With funding from the territorial government, we can expand this system across New Mexico. Imagine. Controlled rainfall. Irrigation on demand. The desert made to bloom on command."

The government officials applauded. Eliza felt sick. The water in the tank pulsed with unnatural light. The spirit's pain rocked her off balance. This wasn't innovation; it was torture.

Blackwater raised his hand for silence. "And now, a demonstration of targeted precipitation."

He nodded to an assistant, who adjusted a series of levers. The pipes rumbled, and steam began to rise from hidden vents. Above the stage, impossibly, clouds began to form in the clear blue sky, condensing from nothing, swirling in patterns too perfect to be natural.

A gasp went up from the crowd as a gentle rain began to fall, but only on the stage and the officials seated in the front row. Blackwater stood in the downpour, arms outstretched, accepting applause while remaining perfectly dry thanks to some property of the unnatural rain.

It was Eliza's moment. She slipped away from the crowd and toward the mine entrance. The guards were minimal. Most had been reassigned to crowd control for the demonstration. Those that remained were distracted by the impossible rain cloud.

She made her way down into the mine. Moving faster now that she knew the route. The spirit's chamber was unguarded. Why bother when the spirit was bound and most of the miners were above ground?

The water in the tank churned violently as she entered, sensing her presence.

EARTH-TOUCHED. YOU RETURN.

"As promised," Eliza said, approaching the tank. "They're using you up there, showing off their control."

THE BINDING WEAKENS WHEN THEY CHANNEL. NOW IS THE TIME.

Eliza nodded and removed from her pocket the dust she had prepared. Dust infused with her will, hardened and shaped into a tool. It looked like ordinary sand, but when she blew it toward the binding symbols on the tank's base, it cut into the metal like a thousand tiny knives.

The symbols began to break, one by one. The water in the tank churned more violently, and Eliza felt the mine tremble around her.

"Careful," she warned. "If the mine collapses—"

I WILL PROTECT YOU, EARTH-TOUCHED. BREAK THE LAST SEAL.

Eliza directed her dust to the final symbol. A complex arrangement that was the keystone of the binding. As it began to erode under her attack, alarm bells rang somewhere above. They had noticed something was wrong with their demonstration.

The last symbol broke. The glass tank shattered outward, water exploded in all directions. Eliza threw up her hands instinctively, calling to the earth to shield her. To her surprise, the water parted around her, not a single drop touching her skin.

The spirit rose from the shattered tank. Its form shifted rapidly between humanoid and pure liquid energy. The pipes connected to the tank burst. Water began to flood the chamber.

COME, EARTH-TOUCHED. THE SKY CALLS.

The spirit extended a hand, and Eliza hesitated only a moment before taking it. The sensation was like plunging into a cool river and finding you could breathe underwater.

The next moments were a blur of motion. They moved through the mine, not by walking, but by flowing. The spirit carryied her through tunnels and up shafts faster than human legs could run. Miners scattered in their path. Some cryied out in terror. Others fell to their knees in prayer.

They burst from the mine entrance into daylight just as Edward Blackwater was frantically ordering men to check the pumping system. His demonstration had gone terribly wrong. Instead of a gentle controlled rain, storm clouds now boiled above the compound. Dark and heavy with suppressed fury.

Blackwater saw them emerge. Eliza, floated inches above the ground, accompanied by a column of living water that vaguely resembled a human form. His face drained of color.

"Stop them!" he shouted. "Shoot them!"

Guards raised rifles, but the spirit gestured and their guns jammed instantly. Metal parts rusted in seconds as water forced its way into every mechanism.

Blackwater backed away. "What do you want? Money? I can pay—"

"It wants freedom," Eliza said. Her voice carryied unnaturally across the compound. "And the land wants its water back."

The spirit raised its arms toward the sky. The storm clouds responded, swirling faster, descending lower. Rain began to fall. Not the controlled drizzle of the demonstration. A true desert downpour. Heavy drops that kicked up dust and quickly turned the dry ground to mud.

People ran for cover. Many stood in the rain, faces upturned, mouths open to catch the precious water they had been denied for so long.

The spirit turned to Eliza. Its form became more defined in the downpour. It revealed a face with features drawn from the indigenous peoples of the region.

THE BALANCE RETURNS. BUT THOSE WHO CAGE THE ELEMENTS MUST LEARN.

It gestured toward Blackwater, who was trying to flee toward the mine offices. The rain around him intensified. It became almost solid in its force and drove him to his knees in the mud.

"Wait," Eliza said. "If you kill him, they'll just come with more men, more machines. They'll never stop trying to control you."

The spirit paused, considering.

WHAT WOULD YOU SUGGEST, EARTH-TOUCHED?

Eliza stepped forward, calling to the dust beneath the mud. It rose around Blackwater, swirling in threatening patterns.

"Edward Blackwater," she called, her voice still carrying despite the pounding rain. "The water is not yours to cage. The rain is not yours to control. You will leave this place and never return. You will destroy your notes, your plans, your machines. If you ever attempt to bind an elemental again, we will know. And we will find you."

To emphasize her point, she commanded the dust to harden around his feet. It encased them in stone that rose to his knees.

"Do you understand?" she asked.

Blackwater, face streaked with rain and terror, nodded frantically.

Eliza released him. He scrambled away through the mud, not even pausing to collect his belongings from the office.

The spirit moved beside her. Its form now appearing almost human in the pouring rain.

YOU SPARED HIM. WHY?

"Because I've seen what fear and hatred do," Eliza replied. "I've been driven from my home by those who feared what they didn't understand. Breaking the cycle has to start somewhere."

The spirit considered this. Then it extended its hand again.

COME WITH ME, EARTH-TOUCHED. THERE ARE MORE OF OUR KIND. MORE ELEMENTALS BOUND BY HUMAN GREED. MORE WHO NEED FREEDOM.

Eliza looked at the offered hand, then back at the town of Prosperity. The rain was falling steadily now. No longer a violent downpour but a gentle soaking rain that would replenish wells and bring life back to the parched land. People were emerging from buildings, wonder on their faces as the drought broke at last.

She saw Mae standing in the doorway of the Silverado, watching her with wide eyes.

"I can't," Eliza told the spirit. "These are my people too. Someone needs to help them understand, to make sure this doesn't happen again."

The spirit nodded.

THEN I WILL FIND YOU AGAIN, EARTH-TOUCHED, WHEN OTHERS OF MY KIND NEED FREEDOM. THE ELEMENTS REMEMBER THEIR FRIENDS.

It began to dissolve, its form merging with the falling rain until it was indistinguishable from the thousands of drops falling from the sky.

THE DUST SPEAKS TO YOU. LISTEN TO ITS WISDOM.

Then it was gone. It left a steady rainfall and a town on the verge of renewal.

---

Town called her the Dust Whisperer. Some with fear, others with reverence, but mostly with a cautious respect born of witnessing something beyond human understanding.

Eliza stayed in Prosperity as it bloomed back to life. The mine operated again. Under the control of the miners themselves after Blackwater's hasty departure. The rain returned to its natural patterns.

If travelers came through town speaking of other places where the elements behaved strangely, where fire burned without fuel or air swirled in windless rooms, Eliza would listen carefully. Then disappear for weeks at a time.

The dust always welcomed her home. It whispered secrets of what had happened in her absence and danced between her fingers when no one was watching. No longer hidden, no longer feared, but respected, as the elements themselves should be.

And sometimes, when the rains came particularly heavy and sweet, she would stand alone in the downpour and smile at the sky, knowing her elemental friend was passing through, keeping a promise that extended beyond words.