Sharon Sala - Rider on Fire & When You Call My Name

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 goose bumps 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 midsummer 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 Americans.

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, she 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.