Rider on Fire

by Sharon Sala

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’d 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 b
reath 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.

  “I’m awake,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. She rubbed her arms where he’d been holding her, then looked up.

  “Do you see me?”

  He looked at her face as if trying to imprint every line and curve into his mind forever. There was no mistaking who she was, or why she was here. But from the little bit she’d just said, he suspected she was not in on the deal.

  “Yes, I see you,” he said softly.

  Sonora exhaled a shaky breath. She didn’t know what to say next.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “And yet you came?” he asked.

  She thought of the nights and days of hallucinations and was halfway convinced that this was nothing but a repeat of the same.

  “It seemed I had no choice,” she muttered.

  “Your father waits for you,” he said.

  Sonora jerked as if he’d just slapped her. She was disgusted with herself for being so gullible. Whatever had been happening to her, now she knew it was a dream.

  “I don’t have a father,” she said angrily.

  “But you do,” Adam said. “Have you ever heard your mother mention a man by the name of Franklin Blue Cat?”

  She snorted in a very unlady-like manner, and added a succinct curse word to boot.

  “Mother? I don’t have one of those, either,” she said. “I was dumped on the doorstep of a Texas orphanage. The details of the ensuing years are hardly worth repeating. And now that this little mystery is over with, I’m out of here.”

  Adam winced. Franklin would be devastated by this news, and he couldn’t let her leave. Not until they’d met face-to-face.

  “You’ve come all this way. Don’t you at least want to talk to him?”

  “Why? He never bothered to look me up.”

  Adam heard old anger in her voice. The story wasn’t his to explain, but if he didn’t convince her of something, she would be gone before Franklin got a chance to state his case.

  “Franklin didn’t know about you. He still doesn’t.”

  Sonora shook her head. “You’re not making sense. And by the way, who the hell are you?”

  “Adam Two Eagles.”

  She tried not to stare, but it was surreal to be standing here having this conversation with a specter from her dreams.

  “So, Mr. Two Eagles … what do you do for a living … besides haunt people’s dreams?”

  Adam stifled a gasp of surprise. He’d been in her dreams? This, he hadn’t known. The Old Ones had really done a job on her.

  “I haunt nothing,” he said quietly. “I used to be in the army. Now I’m a healer for my people, the Kiowa. I know you’re Franklin’s daughter, but I don’t know your name or what you do.”

  “Sonora Jordan is my name. I’m an agent with the DEA.” Then she turned the focus back on him. “So … Adam Two Eagles. You call yourself a healer.”

  He nodded once.

  She reached behind her, felt the seat of her Harley, and clung to it as the only recognizable thing on which she could focus.

  “Healer … as in medicine man or shaman, or whatever it is you people call your style of voodoo?” she asked.

  “Healer, as in healer,” he said. “And my people are your people, too. Whether you accept it or not, you are half Kiowa.”

  The words hit Sonora where it hurt—deep in the old memories of childhood taunts about being a throw-away child with no family and no name. She’d lived her entire life branded by two words that a priest and a nun had chosen out of thin air and given to the latest addition to their orphanage. Sonora because it was the priest’s home town, and Jordan for no reason that she knew other than that they felt by not giving her a Latino name, she might have a better chance at a decent life. A quixotic thought for two devout Catholics who believed that everyone was equal in the eyes of God.

  “You can’t prove that,” she muttered.

  “Well … actually, I can,” he said. “You’ve come all this way. You don’t have to believe me. Follow me if you dare, and see for yourself.”

  Sonora thought of the handgun tucked into the storage behind the seat and then of how far she’d let herself be guided by a whim. What could it hurt? If she had to, she could take him. Besides, maybe this would finally put an end to being a walking nightmare just waiting to happen.

  Adam watched her eyes, only guessing at the jumble of thoughts that must be going through her head.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he added.

  She fixed her gaze on his face, remembered the last thing he’d said to her in her dream, and then sighed. “I know that,” she said.

  Her assurance was startling.

  “Why do you say that with such confidence?” Adam asked.

  “I’m here because I fell into some sort of twilight zone. I’m here because I keep dreaming of a man who’s either sick or dying. And I’m here because you keep haunting my dreams.”

  Again, she mentioned seeing him in her dreams. Intrigued, he had to ask. “What am I doing in your dreams?”

  “Trying to seduce me … I think.”

  He wondered if he looked as startled as he felt.

  “Indeed,” he drawled. “And did I succeed?”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  Sonora glanced up at the sky. Either she holed up in another motel until this storm passed, or she followed this man. Despite the fact that she’d seen his face in her dreams, she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he might try to harm her. Then she sighed. Miguel Garcia wanted her dead. So what was new? It was either the devil she knew, or the one she didn’t.

  “I have one question to ask you,” she said, ignoring the fact that she had not answered his.

  He shrugged. “Then ask.”

  “This man you claim to be my father. Does he have a
wind chime on his front porch that looks like a dreamcatcher?”

  Despite the depth of his tribal beliefs, Adam was taken aback by the question.

  “Yes.”

  “And does he have a hobby of carving things out of wood?”

  Adam thought of his friend’s fame that was known all over the world by those who indulged in his particular brand of art.

  “Yes, you could say that,” he said.

  “And … a few days ago, was he taken ill?”

  Now Adam was feeling out of kilter.

  “You have seen all of this … in dreams?”

  She shrugged, then nodded.

  “The Old Ones have been playing with you,” he said softly.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “If you want to meet your father, then follow me.”

  “I need gas.”

  “I will wait.”

  She reached for the nozzle to the pump, quickly filled the tank, and then dashed into the station to pay.

  Adam saw Franklin in every movement she made, from the cut of her features, to the way she moved when she walked—with her toes pointed inward just the tiniest bit and with the grace of a young filly at one with the world. She was a woman with copper-colored skin and long legs that life had saddled with a hefty portion of defiance. She and Franklin would get along just fine.

  When she came out and mounted her bike, Adam was already rolling out of the station and onto the street.

  She stuffed her hair back beneath her helmet, then fired up the engine. She was on Adam Two Eagles’s tail before he passed the city limits sign.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sonora was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that, not only was the man she’d dreamed of actually real, but that she was following him up a mountain without knowing where she was going. It was against every safeguard she’d been taught, and against every instinct she had. And yet she was doing it.

  It was the first time in her life that she’d questioned the wisdom of having no personal ties. Before, it had been not only convenient, but wise. Without family, bad guys had no leverage against agents like her. But she’d never been faced with this particular situation. She wanted someone to know where she was and what she was doing, if for no other reason than to have a place to start looking for her, should she suddenly disappear.