The explosion was painfully bright against the dark backdrop of the moonless New Mexico sky. To those who looked up at that precise moment — and there were many who happened to look up — it was as though a new star had momentarily blossomed in blue-white incandescence.

The brightness moved in a track from northeast to southwest. It came sputteringly alive in the sacred mountains east of Taos, and grew more fierce as it carved a track roughly over the valley of the Rio Grande, passing above the dusty little pueblos and the bustling city of Santa Fe. Just south of Santa Fe the brightness became unbearable, and eyes were averted as the sudden radiation stabbed at retinas. But now the actinic peak was past. Was the savage flare burning itself out, or was the blaze simply damped by the city lights of sprawling Albuquerque? No matter. The arc of light speared past Isleta Pueblo and was lost somewhere over the Mesa del Oro.

Darkness returned, rolling back over the New Mexico sky like the returning tide.

In the broad plaza of San Miguel Pueblo, forty miles south of Santa Fe, Charley Estancia put his knuckles to his eyes a moment, crushed away the pain, and grinned up at the inverted black bowl of night.

“Shooting star!” he whispered sharply. “Shooting star! Beauty! Beauty!” He laughed. He was eleven years old, skinny and smudge-faced, and he had often seen the ragged tails of the meteors as they sped across the sky. He knew what they were, even if no one else in the pueblo did. But Charley had never seen one like that before. He could still feel the track of it sizzling in his skull. When he blinked, the line of whiteness remained.

Others in the village had seen it too. The plaza was a crowded, busy place tonight, for in another week came the Fire Society dance, and many white folk would travel out from the cities to watch and take pictures and, perhaps, spend money. Charley Estancia heard the gasps, saw the pointing arms of his uncles and cousins and sisters.