October, grey and damp outside the window. Leaves dripping with mist. Another Sunday, days away from work are lonely days. Open the window, chase the spiders out, not many more chances before the autumn really sets in. The feathers of the dream catcher shiver in the draft, but not enough to shed their coat of dust.

A little terraced house, not much to do, but this is the day to do it. On the mantelpiece, where does all this junk come from? Get rid of it, the things are oppressing her, dragging her back towards the person she was, the one who doesn’t exist any more. So why keep these things, staring at her through blank eyes?

She picks up the bird, there is dust in the cracks of its feathers. A cursory wipe with the duster doesn’t get inside the grooves and ridges. She rubs harder, looks at it, for the first time in ages. It looks back at her, head on one side, eye cocked. The draft blows the curtains, and for a moment she can believe the eye has closed and opened again. Startled, she drops it and steps back.

The draft blows again across her face, the warm wind from the desert. The shaman picks up the bird from the dusty ground beneath their feet. The dream catcher shivers from the branch of the tree behind him, the tiny bells of the wind chimes mingle with the sound of the crickets around them.

‘Hold fast to the place inside yourself. The eagle will carry you where you need to be.’

Richard had snorted when she told him.

‘He saw you coming! Look, the thing’s plastic, probably churned out by the thousands in some factory in Albuquerque – or Beijing, more like it!’

But she held the eagle close, feeling the texture of it in her hand. It fitted into her palm as he had fitted into her life, comfortably, with no rough edges.

And when he went, the edges closed over the space that was left as though he had never filled it. Another life, another world. The sand had blown around their faces that day, the golden dust of the desert, creeping into the cracks and splitting them apart, penetrating the fault lines between them. She had come home, back to her mother’s old house, to the quiet street and the quiet job in the quiet town, where the dust and the days were grey.

As she bends to pick up the bird, the tears begin to flow at last.

Black eyes gaze out over the desert, at the first rays creeping up behind the mountains, gilding the sandstone, elongating the shadow of the cactus. Wings stretch out to catch the warmth after the bitter desert night, slowly, deliberately, fanning out, pinion from pinion, strength flowing from the shoulders to the tips of the furthest feathers. It leans forward from the claws clamped around the outcrop. But the air is too cold, it will take time for the sun to lift the thermals from the chilly ground, to take it soaring again across the desert. It must bide its time. The wings flap, the great beak opens, and a screech of frustration echoes back from the relentless mountains.

The phone rings.

‘Hi, Richard. It’s Tiffany. I was wondering, are you free tonight?’

Tiffany? He frowns. They’re all Tiffany. What about the voice? A hint of hillbilly barely covered up, Tennessee maybe or Georgia… that’s it, last week’s sales conference, and the bar afterwards, Tiffany from Atlanta. Short skirt riding up as she sat on the barstool, her thigh pressed against his in the crush at the bar, neither of them moving away, leaning in towards him: “I just love that British accent”.

‘Hey, Tiffany, sure, it would be great to see you again’.

Arrangements made, he hangs up the phone, and a shiver passes through him. Why do they have to have the air conditioning so bloody cold? He stares out of the window, at the iced tops of the distant Rockies, dwarfed between the plate glass and aluminium of downtown. A city of exiles.

Tonight he will find oblivion between Tiffany’s tanned thighs. But first, he reaches towards the keyboard, and begins to type.

The shaman inhales deeply. He has lit the incense and made the offering to the sky. He heard the eagle’s cry this morning at sunrise, calling out to its spirit, trapped so far away across the ocean. He begins the chant, echoing the eagle’s scream of despair, his voice twisting and writhing like the path of the rattle snake, then rising, following the drifting and wreathing of the smoke, the patterns of life as they link and cross each other, break away and drift apart. There is a wrong to be rectified, a great unhappiness, but he has done all he can. Only time can resolve the tangles in the patterns of life.

It must be nearly midnight, the heating has been off for an hour and the room has grown cold. She goes into the kitchen to heat up some milk in the microwave. A good discussion at evening class tonight, they asked her to join them at the pub afterwards, but she made the usual excuses: “I really must get an early night, I”ve got so much on this week.’ Evening classes, yoga, pilates, choir, such a full life, always keeping busy. No wonder she fell asleep over the newspaper, didn’t notice how late it was till the cold woke her.

The computer is still powered on, better switch it off before bedtime, just check the emails one last time. She opens the inbox, and sees his name.

She stares. She feels her heartbeat, her breath, quickening as they once did at the sound of his voice, at the sight of his smile. But this time it is with dread, not joy, and a coldness is forming in the pit of her stomach, like ice around a snowball.

What the hell does he want?

Behind her, she hears the ping of the microwave

No more hesitation. She clicks on the message, and without opening it, adds the address to the “Blocked sender list”.

Glancing up, she catches sight of the bird, balanced on top of the monitor. In the dark of the cold house, she knows the time for running away is over. The black eyes watch as she finds the website, and the warm desert colours fill the screen.

He crawls back into the apartment, almost daybreak, he needs a shower and clean shirt, to wash away the smell of Tiffany with her so-prefect body and her so-perfect bedroom. He’s bored already, he will have to think of some excuse, some way of getting rid of her, though he suspects she’s the type who isn’t got rid of easily.

He pauses by the mailbox. The envelope he takes out with his own handwriting on the front looks battered and forlorn after its double Atlantic crossing. He curses when he reads the words she has written on it: “Return to sender”.

She parks the car outside the ranger station. Not really built for these roads, she hopes the hire company are forgiving. When she gets herself settled, she will buy an SUV, this kind of landscape justifies it. Once the money from the sale of the house in England comes through, she should be able to make herself comfortable, and she still can’t quite believe the salary they’ve offered her for the new job.

The screen door of the ranger station bangs shut, and a familiar figure is hurrying towards her, a smile of welcome, a warm hug.

‘It’s so great to have you back!’

He steps away from her, hand still on her shoulder, holding her at arm’s length, looking down into her face. She can’t stop smiling.

‘You look terrific. Why’d you stay away so long? How are you?’

‘Much better for being here!’ She turns and waves as another old friend comes down the steps towards her.

‘And your husband? How’s he doing these days?’

‘Ex-husband’, she corrects, then, seeing the embarrassment on his face, she shakes her head.

‘No, it’s fine, honestly, it’s great. Just took me a long time to realise that I didn’t have to keep running away from him, that’s all.’ She steps away, and turns slowly, taking in the way the golden light bounces off the rocky crags, the buds on the cactus, the noise of the crickets. ‘And that I didn’t have to let him chase me away from the place where I belong.’

With a crow of joy, the eagle lifts from its perch and gives itself to the warm air rising beneath its wings.