One would think Kat’s mind would be sufficiently blown by the events atop the mesa, not to mention the trauma of falling over 200 feet to what should have been her death. Whatever happened up there left her with a dream catcher that was not hers and a burning need for answers. Going back to the old Indian woman for answers became a priority. A priority that would lead her deeper into a new level of crazy.
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Puye Prophecy
Chapter #7 – Crack in Time
Kat staggered backward and leaned on the left fender, one hand on the car and one clutching the dream catcher between her breasts. She shifted her feet to rebalance, half covering the headlight beam and the dwindling dust. Her shadow cast a profile into what hung in the air, giving away the angst evident in her body language, crouching as though ready to flee…but to where? She sat with her head hung down as though searching for something…words, maybe. Words to describe what raced through her head were missing. How do you explain something that is not part of your known reality?
Kat did not have answers, only more questions, but she knew in her heart moving forward was the only option. She slipped back behind the wheel and slammed the door against the night with enough momentum to rock the car. Her hand slipped off the door handle as she collapsed sideways onto the big bench seat and began to cry. Crying made her angry because it conveyed weakness in her mind. At this point, she didn’t care, so she wept openly. She prayed. She prayed out loud. And then she smelled it. Smoke! Him!
Murderous thoughts went through her head when she turned on the dome light to reveal Big Crow with Little Feet in her rearview, sitting in the middle of her back seat. This may not be fact, but Kat felt he had too much of a smirk on his face for good measure, a smirk that said Here I am. What are you going to do about it? Kat triggered and came right off the rails in a blind fury.
“What the ever-loving fuck are you doing in my car? Haven’t you done enough?” She shrieked into the mirror, half turned in her seat, and continued to unload on him. He never had a chance to answer before she blasted him again, “Who do you think you are?” followed immediately by “What do you want from me, you old crow?”
When she finally stopped to draw a breath and reload, he motioned with an open hand that clearly said to stand down and be silent.
In his gravelly voice, he spoke softly, “You have created history early in this journey that many may never appreciate your role.”
She sat behind the wheel, becoming quite certain they would not move forward another inch until she got some answers. She blurted out, “Journey. What journey, Big Bird? And what history? What role?”
Her voice rose louder with each question. She sat back, pushed on the steering wheel with both hands as though bracing for an impact, and fell silent to gather thoughts on what to do next. She had had enough of this stinky Indian medicine man or whatever he was. She was done.
Her final pissed-off salvo was launched at him mercilessly as he slouched in the back seat. “We’re done here, Crow Feet!” She paused for a breath and then struck again with the last of her venom, “What else could you possibly want from me beyond setting me up to be raped by some spirit birdman?”
He never flustered, shrunk back, or showed any reaction to her verbal assault. He said softly, “After tonight if it is your wish, we will be done. Your journey will continue as you carry our royal blood within you.”
“WHAT?” Kat shrieked once more, pounding the seatback as she protested. “I’m not carrying anything, the least of which is your royal blood.”
“My child, you carry my great-great-grandson and are linked with our blood from many generations ago,” he explained. You inherited Puye blood from your mother’s bloodline from long ago. That, my dear, is the only reason you were chosen in the first place. It has given you a purity no one else has.”
Kat ignored his reasons and challenged, “Chosen? Chosen for rape? Chosen because I have royal blood? Is that the bull shit you’re feeding me?”
“Child, you already have royal blood from many generations in your past. Remember? You are Duwit chonah mowna jawneek.”
I don’t know what that means, Crow. Grandma at the service station said it, too, and felt it was a big deal. I don’t get into that voodoo or spiritual BS, so spare me with the story, okay?”
He sat slouched in the seat, unmoving, and lifted his eyes to meet hers. “The translation to your language is not exact, but you were chosen to carry the royal offspring of Eagle Shadow by the spirit of his princess Dew on Flowers that was within you.” He paused, remaining silent to see where she headed next in her protest.
“There’s no way. I’ve not even had…” she paused in midsentence, not wanting to speak what her brain feared most.
Big Crow finished her rant with the question, “Had sex with a man?”
Kat remained defiant, “What happened wasn’t sex. I never left my car. Nobody gets pregnant from a mind-fuck, and that’s what this is. Right?” Now she was pissed, “You’re a mind-fuck, too, and you need to leave.”
The instant those words left her lips, he was gone, leaving a fading wisp of his smoky scent in his wake.
Kat whirled back around and fell deeper into her seat, both hands gripping the wheel with aggression from anger and the preposterous prediction that she was pregnant. Her hands dropped to her midsection. No way, she thought. No fucking way.
The anger remained, pushing her to find answers or who could give them up. She jammed the accelerator to the floor and spun the rear tires as she steered east onto the interstate. A business decision to find answers and postpone the visit with Maddie until later became the plan. It would take several hours for this detour to render fruit, but she did not care how late or early in the morning it was; she wanted answers.
It was almost 5:45 AM when she arrived at the exit where she bought the coldest iced tea in Texas yesterday. She wanted answers, and that old woman must live in the back, so answers were within reach. She turned off the exit ramp with too much speed, swerved across the road and slid into the service station parking lot, scattering dirt and gravel. As she slid to a stop, headlights panned across the parking area, dust clouds swirling in the bright headlight beams. The weeds and scrub grasses growing through cracks in the pavement in front of the diner looked longer than she remembered. The sun was still below the horizon, but the sky had barely begun to lighten. The green Sinclair dinosaur sign was faintly visible. As she circled the tanks, she noticed they had no hoses or had been cut. When the headlights swept over the front of the building, it was abandoned and had been vacant for most of the last thirty years.
Kat turned off the ignition but left the headlights on, bathing the front of the old building. Her car door squeaked, protesting her intentions, when she opened it to step out and approach the building. She was not afraid. The desire for answers was her primary mission, and she wouldn’t find them standing in the parking lot. She approached the front screen door with slow, measured steps. The battered screen hung precariously by a single hinge. When she pulled it slightly to access the front door behind it, the remaining hinge snapped, and what was left of the screen door fell to the side.
The interior door no longer had a knob and stood open several inches. She tentatively pushed the door, and the hinges screeched in protest. Light from the headlights lit up the room fairly well, and Kat could see that the interior was the same as she had experienced it, except for an inch of dust or sand that had collected on everything. She saw the three seats in front of the counter coated in dust. Her eyes froze on the top of the counter, and she stepped closer, leaving tracks on the dusty floor. It was a half-full mug of tea right where she had left it when she jumped up and bailed out the door.
Kat staggered back at the sight of the tea mug, turned awkwardly to crash out the front door, and sprinted unsteadily, angling toward her car. She jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door hard to cut this new reality out of her life. There is no way this made any sense. Who were those people? Where did they go? Were they ever here? Had all of this been hallucinations?
She found no answers, only more questions. She had seen just enough to believe the whole story was in her head until her eyes fell on that damn mug from earlier that afternoon mysteriously perched on a counter where she had left it…a counter that had been abandoned for 30 years. No fucking way.
No, this was real, but she was confounded by what happened at the service station and other experiences like Big Crow vanishing into thin air. She gazed at the abandoned station in her headlights with a head full of questions. It seemed like all she had were questions and no answers. The station looked like it had fallen into a crack in time since earlier the previous afternoon. Had it been real? How could that happen? Had it been in a different dimension? She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead onto her hands gripping the steering wheel as she pondered if she was headed for a deeper level of crazy.
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Hope you enjoyed chapter #7. Still, more story to share, so keep checking back. Would love to know what you think so far gdogwise@live.com
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G.