CHAPTER EIGHT

Savannah sat on Black Calf’s worn couch long after he retired for the evening.

“Please make sure you lock the door on your way out, Savannah,” He murmured at the foot of the stairs as if he had not just lowered a bombshell in her lap.

She stood experimentally after a while, testing the steadiness of her legs then slowly retreated from the ramshackle house. Her mind was still racing. Nevertheless, her legs moved her slowly along as if they’d developed their own will, and that will had decided it best not to run or they would collapse.

When she reached the car, the only thing her mind could think of was retiring to her motel room, taking a hot shower, and sleeping on all that she’d discovered, but it was not to be. The moment she crawled into the car, Tyeshia declared her desire to return to Havre posthaste, having no desire to stay around the reservation a second longer.

“Tyeshia, I know you are upset,” Savannah tried to reason, “but the hotel is closer and I’m a little more than tired. There’s no reason to make the trek home at this hour and we won’t make it back to my parent’s house until nearly midnight even if we leave this very second.”

Tyeshia met her pleading however, with stone-cold silence, so Savannah acquiesced. Tired as she was, she understood all too well the emotions tumbling around inside her friend. What she learned unnerved her and she had not been the direct recipient of the worst of Black Calf’s revelations.

Still, as she sped down the Interstate, she wished that Tyeshia would say something to her; anything to break the monotony of the two-lane highway and the darkened landscape. Her eyes started to droop and she reached instinctively for the thermos of coffee, realizing only after she unscrewed the lid that she forgot to refill the container before leaving the reservation. With her coffee mug empty and her friend still sitting silently, staring out of the car toward the horizon, Savannah wished she were more adamant about staying in a hotel. Browning was now out of the question, but perhaps they could find vacancy along the way. If not, she would definitely need to find an all-night truck stop and refill her thermos. Savannah groaned at the reminder that she was out of the delicious, eye-opening brew.

“What are you groaning about? I’m the one with the screwed-up psyche,” Tyeshia snapped softly without turning her gaze from the window.

“I’m out of coffee and without it I may not survive the drive back to Havre.”

Savannah was joking of course, but her friend did not rise to the bait as she normally would have. “Come on, Ty,” Savannah coaxed, “at least tell me that my driving will kill us long before my lack of coffee will. Anything!”

“I shouldn’t have come.” Tyeshia said in a voice so low that Savannah almost missed what she said.

“I think you’re wrong,” Savannah sighed, forgetting her attempts at levity. Tyeshia just was not up to it. She needed reassurance that her life would go on as before, not jokes about coffee fixations. Of course, telling Tyeshia that she was wrong about her decision to come did not help either. She could not see her friend’s face in the darkened interior when she turned, and was relieved. Somehow, she knew that if she could see Tyeshia’s face, her burning gaze would turn her to ashes.

“That was the scariest experience of my life! How could it possibly have been good for me to be here?” Tyeshia’s voice was a mere whisper, but the anger behind her words reverberated like thunder in the compact car.

“Think logically for a moment, Ty. If you hadn’t come, then you would not have known about Many Feathers.”

“Many Feathers is a dead man!” Tyeshia’s voice steadily increased in volume. “He died over a hundred years ago! He doesn’t exist, and your friend is absolutely insane trying to convince us otherwise!”

“What if Black Calf is genuinely sane?”

“I don’t play ‘what if’ games. Are you telling me you believe in ghosts now, Savannah? You, who are normally so practical?”

“I’m just trying to figure this out. I mean, why Black Calf would go to all the trouble of telling us this just to scare us makes no sense. Why would you be so scared if what he said meant so little to you? You could have just brushed him off and gone about your way, but you haven’t. You’re still mulling over every word, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Of course,” Savannah agreed. “Unless I felt that what he said held no merit.”

“So you think that all that baloney is for real?”

“I believe that he thinks it’s real. You have to remember that some Native Americans take dreams very seriously and you admitting to dreaming about a Native only added fuel to the fire.”

“So you’re saying that I should have lied?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, Ty,” Savannah sighed. “Neither of us was thinking clearly enough to have lied. You know what they say about hindsight being twenty-twenty. Well, I think that’s the case now,” Savannah explained. “It’s easy to sit here and think of what the most logical course of action would have been, and explain away all that happened rationally when we’re no longer under his sphere of influence.”

“So you’re saying we should just go back to Virginia and forget all about what happened here today?”

“If we make it that far,” Savannah said with a wry grin on her face.

“Just what is that supposed to mean?” Tyeshia was still in no mood for her friend’s jesting.

“Sorry, Ty, I’m trying to lighten the mood, and I’m also thinking about something that Black Calf said after you left.”

“The last thing that will lighten my mood is talking about that loony or about anything that happened in the last few hours.”

“Gees, Ty, he really got to you didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I guess he did.”

“Yeah, well, I have to admit that Black Calf rather shook me up as well, especially. . . .”

“I said I don’t want to discuss it further, Savannah, and I’m not joking.”

“I know, Ty. It’s just that I think you need to know this one last detail, then maybe we can let sleeping ghosts . . . ,” Savannah started to explain, then stopped. “I don’t recall passing any major cities along this route, do you?”

Tyeshia looked into the distance at the myriad of lights spanning the horizon. The lights looked like thousands upon thousands of male lightning bugs fighting over a single mate. The twinkles of the dim yellow lights seem to go from horizon to horizon, leaving little room for the darkness to penetrate.

As the car topped a ridge and moved into a valley, the lights disappeared, but when they topped the next ridge, the lights were still there.

“Maybe we’re closer to Havre than we thought,” Tyeshia interjected in the growing silence.

Savannah stole a glance at her odometer. “Not unless they moved the city since we left. We just passed Shelby a short while back and shouldn’t be anywhere near another city until we reach Chester. Not that it matters, since I’ve never seen city lights that twinkle like that or that twinkle that brightly.”

“Perhaps there’s a fair or something going on that’s lit up the sky with unnatural brilliance?” Tyeshia offered helpfully.

“You had to use the word ‘unnatural’, didn’t you?”

“Sorry, but it was the only word that fit, and it’s the only reasonable explanation that fits.”

“Yeah, but you are forgetting that detail about there not being any cities between Shelby and Chester, and no, I’m certain that there isn’t one that I forget with lights bright enough to rival the stars. Unless they built one while we were at the reservation today.”

“Maybe Chester is having a big to-do about something.”

“First, the lights are practically smack dab in the middle of the road, Ty, which makes it unlikely that it would be a city. Even if a city did just happen to appear here since my last visit and was hosting a special fair, have you ever seen a fair that lit up the horizon like that before?”

“Well, you don’t have to get so snappish about it. I was only trying to figure this thing out. How fast are you going, anyway?” Tyeshia whispered, their brewing argument temporarily forgotten.

Savannah stole another glance at her panel reading the digital speed display aloud, “Seventy-five miles per hour. I have it on speed control, so that hasn’t fluctuated since we left the reservation. Why?”

“Take another look at those lights.”

“Yeah . . . holy mother. . . .”

“My words exactly,” Tyeshia croaked. “Those lights are getting larger and closer by the millimile.”

“Millimile couldn’t possibly be a real word,” Savannah corrected instinctively.

“Like I’d know, but it seems for every fraction of a second we move closer it moves a thousand times closer to us. Maybe you should stop and turn around.”

“Why? We can probably drive right through it, don’t you think?”

“Those lights are not some mutant firefly swarm that’s going to fly right by us without a second glance. I can feel there’s something wrong here.”

“What are you thinking, Ty?”

“I’m not thinking anything, but my gut tells me that those lights aren’t what they seem and it would be the best to hightail it outta here, so could you please turn this dadblasted car around?”

“I don’t think it would matter, Ty.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think you are right, and those lights are moving faster than we are,” Savannah said, an obvious tremor in her voice, “which means it will overtake us whether we turn around or not. I’d have to drive at the speed of light, literally, to get away from those particular lights.”

“Heck, no! I ain’t buying that. Turn this car around right now, Savannah, and floor it. We’re getting the heck out of dodge now.”

The Ford Mustang’s tires squealed loudly in protest as Savannah slammed on the brakes. The car fishtailed across the two lanes and Savannah was thankful for the lack of oncoming traffic. She gained control of the car and completed the U-turn, hitting the accelerator the moment the car straightened.

Tyeshia twisted in her seat, staring out of the rear window, her gaze widening in disbelief. Savannah glanced in the rearview mirror and let out a string of curses.

“Can’t this bucket of bolts go any faster?”

“I’m already going over one-hundred-twenty miles per hour now, Ty.”

“Oh my God in heaven, we’re really not going to outrun it, are we?” Tyeshia moaned, her head flopping onto the headrest. “Why are we slowing?” She snapped her head up and stared at the speedometer . . . one-hundred-five, one-hundred, ninety-five.

“It’s pointless, Ty,” Savannah whispered, glancing again in the rearview mirror, “we simply can’t outrun whatever it is, and if we keep driving like lunatics we’re going to end up dead.”

“If we stop then we’ll be sitting ducks, and whatever that thing is will kill us anyway.”

Savannah pulled to a stop along the grassy knoll of the small highway, laid her head on the steering wheel, and took several calming breaths. “Aren’t we overreacting just a little bit?”

Tyeshia looked at the rapidly approaching lights, “No.”

“Perhaps it’s just what you said, a swarm of mutated fireflies, which would be nothing to get alarmed about. So why not just sit here and let it bypass us? Then we’ll turn around and head for Havre,” Savannah laughed nervously. “You know, I think we just got worked up over our little conversation with Black Calf and now we’re seeing boogie men around every corner.”

“No offense, Savannah, but I think your logic circuits are on a lunch break. I mean, really, when have you ever seen anything like this? Yet you just want to sit here and let it overtake us? Which by the way, could be any minute now.”

Savannah glanced in the rearview mirror again and her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I am being logical, unfortunately. You wouldn’t happen to be as scared as I am, would you?” Savannah murmured as she watched the lights move closer still. They were close enough now that she could tell that they were not mutant fireflies or car lights or anything she’d ever seen. The lights looked more like billions of stars that had fallen from the sky and were moving along trying to pick up enough speed to slingshot themselves back into the vastness of space.

“I’m so scared I can’t even wet myself,” Ty whispered. Savannah looked at her friend’s face and smiled grimly.

“I can see the lights twinkling off your skin now,” she murmured irrationally.

Tyeshia lifted a hand instinctively to her face as if she could discern a difference in her skin. “You, too,” she whispered, running a finger down the bridge of Savannah’s nose.

“You are my best friend in the whole wide world, Ty. I just want you to know that.”

“Think we’ll still know each other in the afterlife?” Tyeshia whispered as the car began filling with the brilliance of light.

“I don’t think we’re heading to the afterlife.” Savannah sat looking at the light that began to surround them, a sudden awareness gripping her like a warm embrace. “Actually, I’m certain Heaven isn’t going to be a part of this at all. If what Black Calf said is true then . . .  ,” Savannah wanted to finish, but just then, a brilliant light washed over them, blinding them with its iridescence.

Tyeshia screamed. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, but Savannah dared to keep her eyes open. She watched in marvelous wonder the myriad of colors swirling around her. Her doubts fled as Black Calf’s words settled over her and realization dawned. She closed her eyes then, gave Tyeshia’s hand a reassuring squeeze, and waited for their journey to be over. A journey that was most certain to find them in the year eighteen-sixty-nine.

Author's Note

All of my books are available on Amazon: Kindle, Hard copy, Lending Library (author, Barbara Woster)