Rider on Fire

Sonora was still rattled by her latest hallucination as she rode through Amarillo, Texas, but kept going.

She never knew when she crossed the Oklahoma border, but when the sun finally came up, she saw a sign on the side of the road indicating Clinton and Weatherford were only a few miles ahead. She’d never heard of Clinton, but for some reason, she knew Weatherford was in Oklahoma.

Just knowing that she was in the state fueled a sense of urgency she didn’t understand, but she was too weary to go any farther until she’d gotten some food and some sleep.

Adam Two Eagles had watched the sun rise, then fed his cat before making himself sit down and write checks to pay his bills. Some time today he was going to have to go into town and get groceries, but not for a while. The day was too nice to waste and he’d promised some families he’d go visit and make medicine for them.

And so the day passed as Adam made visits and answered a couple of phone calls for help from his cell phone. He worked without thought of what waited for him back home until it was getting late and he had yet to go to town and get his groceries. In a few hours it would be dark. He thought about waiting until tomorrow to go shopping and started to go inside his house, when suddenly, the front door swung shut in front of him.

Startled, he stopped, opened it, then stood on the threshold and waited, expecting to feel a draft from an open window somewhere in the house.

He felt nothing.

The skin crawled on the back of his neck.

He turned and looked toward the horizon.

The sense of imminency was still with him.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I will go to town.”

Chapter 5

A man was in the motel parking lot cursing the flat he’d found on his car as a police siren sounded a few blocks over.

Sonora heard none of it. The air conditioning unit near her bed was a buffer against the heat outside, as well as the noise. She slept deeply and without moving, until she began to dream.

She was surrounded by trees. The wind was rustling the leaves overhead. In the distance, she could hear coyotes. She was lost, and yet she wasn’t afraid. Something flew past her—most likely an owl. They were night-hunters—like her. As soon as she thought that, she frowned. Why had she referred to herself as a night-hunter? That made no sense.

A twig snapped off to her right.

Sonora froze. Something—or someone—was out there.

“Who’s there?” she asked, and then feared the answer.

Another twig snapped. This time from behind her. She wanted to turn around, but as always, she couldn’t move.

“Stop it,” she yelled. “Either speak up or get the hell away from me. This isn’t funny!”

Wind lifted the hair from the back of her neck as she curled her fingers into fists. It took a few moments for it to sink in that the gust of wind was past, but that her hair was still up.

She heard a sigh, then felt something brush the skin above her collar.

“No, no, no,” she moaned. “I want to wake up.”

“Not yet,” someone whispered.

Sonora shuddered.

“Sssh, pretty woman…you are safe.”

“Oh God, oh God, I need this to stop. I’m waking up now. Do you hear me? I’m waking up now!”

She closed her eyes, counted to ten, and then opened them, expecting to be anywhere but in a forest, in the dark, with a stranger at her back.

“Why am I not awake?” she moaned.

“Because we are not done,” he said softly.

“Then show yourself, damn it!”

There was a long moment of silence. Sonora waited—uncertain what would happen first. Either he would disappear, or she would wake up. Then suddenly, her hair was laying against her neck once more, and she thought she heard him whisper something near her ear. She wasn’t sure. It could have been the wind, but she thought she heard him say, “as you wish.”

She closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

Panic hit her like a blow to the gut. Be careful of what you ask for, she thought.

“Woman. Look. At. Me.”

His voice was firm, but she was no longer afraid.

She took a deep breath and then opened her eyes just as a cloud blew over the moon. In the dark, all she could see were his eyes, looking down at her and glittering like a wolf.

So he was tall.

She felt his breath upon her face, or maybe it was just the wind.

“Do you see me?” he asked.

The wind blew the last of the cloud away from the face of the moon, and he was revealed to her in the moonlight.

It was a stunning face—a face that appeared to have been carved out of rock—all angles and hard planes—except for his mouth. It was full and curved in just a hint of a smile. When he saw that she was looking at his lips, she saw his nostrils flare.

“I see you,” she said.

“Then come to me,” he demanded.

Sonora woke up just as someone fell against the outside door of her motel room. She heard a burst of muffled laughter and then the sounds faded away.

“Oh God, what is happening to me?” she whispered. “Am I going insane?”

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked for the digital clock. It was either broken or unplugged, because the digital readout was dark. She turned on a light, then glanced around for her watch. She didn’t see it, tried to remember when she’d looked at it last and failed.

“Great,” she muttered, then stumbled to the window. It was still daylight outside.

She glanced back at the bed and then frowned. There was no way she was going back to bed and chance resuming that dream. It was too unsettling. Without giving herself time to rethink the decision, she hurried to the bathroom. The sooner she got cleaned up and dressed, the sooner she could leave.

She didn’t know for sure where she was going, but that hadn’t stopped her yet. If she admitted the truth, she hadn’t been in control of her life since that day in Tijuana when she’d fallen flat on her face and into what she could only describe as a parallel world. From the time she’d left Phoenix, to right now in this strange motel room in a state named for the Native American Indians who peopled it, she had been led by something more powerful than anything she’d ever known before. As confused as she felt, she had come to believe that something—or someone would continue to lead her in the right direction.

As she was dressing, she remembered she’d been going to call her boss. She took the phone off the charger and made the call to the Arizona headquarters of the DEA, but when she was put through to Mynton’s office, he was gone. Frustrated, she left him a message saying that she was okay and she’d call him later.

Within an hour, she was back on the Harley with the sun at her back, trusting in a force she could not see.

Franklin Blue Cat was asleep in his favorite lounge chair on the back porch. The disease he was battling and the medications he was taking to fight it often left his body feeling chilled and old beyond his years. Shaded from the sun, and with the breeze in his face, he reveled in the heat of summer.

Although he was still, his sleep was restless, as if his mind refused to waste what little time he had left. In the middle of a breath, pain plowed through his body, bringing him to an immediate upright position and gasping for air. He struggled against panic, wondering if he would be afraid like this when his last breath had come and gone, then shoved the thought aside.

He believed in a higher power and he believed that when his body quit, his spirit did not. It was enough.

He glanced at his work in progress and then pushed himself up from the chair. For whatever odd reason, he had a compulsion to finish this piece before he was too weak to work.

Once up, he decided to get something to drink before he resumed carving. He was in the kitchen when he heard a commotion outside in the front yard. He hurried onto the porch. At first, he saw nothing, although he still heard the sound. Puzzled, he stepped off the porch, then looked up.

High above the house, an eagle was circling. Every now and then it would let out a cry, and each time it did, it raised goosebumps on Franklin’s arms.

“I see you, brother,” Franklin said.

The eagle seemed to dip his wings, as if to answer, I see you, too.

Franklin shaded his eyes with his hand, watching in disbelief as the eagle flew lower and lower.

Was this it? Was this how it would happen? Brother Eagle would come down and take his spirit back to the heavens?

His heart began to pound. His knees began to shake.

Lower and lower, the eagle flew, still circling—still giving out the occasional, intermittent cry. And each time it cried out, Franklin assured Brother Eagle that he was seen.

Franklin didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath until the eagle suddenly folded its wings against its body and began to plummet.

Down, down, down, it came, like a meteor falling to earth.

Franklin couldn’t move as the great bird came toward him at unbelievable speed. Just when he thought there was no way they would not collide, the eagle opened his wings, leveled off his flight and sailed straight past Franklin with amazing grace.

Franklin felt the wind from the wings against his face—saw the golden glint of the eagle’s eye—and knew without being told that the Old Ones had sent him a sign.

Staggered by the shock of what had just happened, Franklin took two steps backward, then sat down. The dirt was warm against his palms. A ladybug flew, then lit on the collar of his shirt.

He smelled the earth.

He felt the sun.

He heard the wind.

He saw the eagle fly straight up into the air and disappear.

It was then he knew. A change was coming. He didn’t know how it would be manifested, but he knew that it would be.

Gerald Mynton got back in the office around three in the afternoon. When he heard Sonora’s voice on the answering machine, he groaned. He needed to talk to her and she’d given him no idea whatsoever of where she was or how she could be reached. It was obvious to Mynton that she kept her phone turned off unless she was physically using it, and had to be satisfied with leaving her another message that it was urgent he talk to her. All he could do was hope she called in again soon.

Sonora passed through Oklahoma City in a haze of heat and fumes from the exhausts of passing trucks and cars. Sweat poured from her hair and into her eyes until she could no longer bear the sting. She pulled over to the shoulder of the road long enough to take off her helmet and get a drink. She emptied a bottle of water that had long since lost its chill, then tossed it back into her pack to be discarded later.

There was some wind, but it did nothing to cool her body against the mid-summer heat of Oklahoma. In the distance, she could see storm clouds building on the horizon and guessed that it might rain before morning. Maybe it was just as well that she’d taken to the highway this day. She knew Oklahoma weather had a predilection for tornadoes. Riding tonight would probably not be a good idea.

Reluctantly, she replaced the helmet, swung the Harley back into traffic, and resumed her eastward trek, passing Oklahoma City, then the exit road to Choctaw, and then exits to Harrah and then Shawnee. It dawned on her as she continued her race with the heat, that nearly every other town she passed had some sort of connection with the Native American Indians.

It wasn’t until she came up on Henryetta, once a coal mining town, and now a town claiming rights to being the home of World Champion Cowboys, Troy Aikman and Jim Shoulders, that she felt something go wrong.

She flew past an exit marked Indian Nation Turnpike. Within seconds after passing it, a car came out of nowhere and cut in front of her so quickly that she almost wrecked. It took a few moments for her to get the Harley under control, and when she did, pulled off the highway onto the shoulder of the road.

Her heart was hammering against her chest and she was drenched in sweat inside the leather she was wearing. She sat until she could breathe, without thinking she was going to throw up, and got off the bike.

She took off her helmet, then removed her leather vest. Despite the passing traffic, she removed her shirt, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra. Without paying any attention to the honks she was getting from the passing cars, she put her vest back on. Then she wound her hair back up under her helmet, jammed it on her head and swung her leg over the seat of the bike.

The engine beneath her roared to life, then settled into a throaty rumble as she took off.

Less than a mile down the highway, a deer came bounding out of the trees at the side of the road. Sonora had to swerve to keep from hitting it. This time, when she got the Harley under control, she began to look for a safe place to cross.

She might be hardheaded, but she wasn’t stupid. For whatever reason, she’d gone too far east. She thought of the exit she’d just passed, and the odd feeling that had come over her as she’d read the words.

Indian Nation Turnpike.

For the same reason that had taken her this far east, she felt she was now supposed to go south. She waited until there was a break in the traffic, and rode across the eastbound lanes and into the wide stretch of grass in the center median. She paused there, until she caught an opening in the westbound lanes and accelerated.

It didn’t take her long to find the southbound exit to the Indian Nation Turnpike, and when she took it, it felt right. Pausing at the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp, she took a deep breath and then accelerated.

The moment she did, it felt as if the wheels on the Harley had turned to wings. The wind cooled her body and she felt lighter than air.

Adam loaded the last sack of groceries into the seat of his pickup truck and then slid behind the wheel. As soon as he turned it on, he noticed his fuel gauge registered low. He lived too far up into the mountains to risk running out of gas, so he backed up and drove to the gas station at the end of the street.

As he pumped the gas, a sweat bee zipped past his nose, then took a second run back at his arm. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. As he did, he heard the deep, throaty growl of a motorcycle engine and, out of nothing but curiosity, turned and found himself staring into the simmering fires of a setting sun.

For a moment, he was blinded by the glare, unable to see the rider or the bike. Quickly, he looked away, then shaded his face and looked again.

Breath caught at the back of his throat.

The bike and the rider were silhouetted against the heat and the sun as it paused on the horizon of an ending day. Despite the heat, Adam shivered. Although he knew it was an optical illusion, both rider and bike appeared to be on fire.

He was still staring when the illusion faded and the rider wheeled the bike into the empty space beside Adam’s truck. He heard the pump kick off, signaling that his tank was full, and still he couldn’t bring himself to move.

He didn’t know when he realized that the rider was a woman, but he knew the moment she took off her helmet and turned to face him, that he’d been waiting for her all of his life.

When their gazes connected, she gasped, then staggered backward. If Adam hadn’t reacted so swiftly, she would have fallen over her bike. And the moment he touched her, he flinched as if he’d been burned.

“You came,” he said softly.

Sonora looked down at his fingers that were curled around her bare arms. She could feel him. She could see him. But that had happened before. The test would now be if she could move.

She took a step back. To her surprise, her feet moved. In a panic, she wrenched away from his grasp.

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