Sharon Sala - Rider on Fire

It was nothing but a book. He had a difficult time speaking English and couldn’t read it at all, so he was definitely disappointed. He didn’t get interested until he realized the book wasn’t just a book, it was an atlas—a book of maps.

He was looking for a woman who’d obviously gone on a trip, so he started at the beginning and began turning pages one by one. About six pages in, he came to the page showing the map of the United States and found his first clue.

Someone had taken a highlighter and traced a path north out of Phoenix and into Oklahoma. The yellow line ended near a small town on the interstate called Henryetta.

He didn’t know how old the atlas was, or if the yellow line was from a previous trip, but it was simple enough to check out. Within minutes he was gone.

He made Flagstaff around four o’clock and immediately began flashing her picture around at gas stations and eating establishments. It took a couple of hours before he hit pay-dirt.

He found an employee at a gas station who remembered a pretty woman wearing black leather and riding a Harley. When Miguel showed him Sonora’s picture, he confirmed it was her that he’d seen.

Miguel was congratulating himself on his detective work and thought about driving on through the night, but when he saw the gathering thunderstorms, he changed his mind. He got a room for the night and settled in, satisfied that he was on the right track.

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.”

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