Ignition Page 3

  I was alone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The aging security guard helped Julia take her cousin Dean to the back room. She couldn’t believe what had happened.

  The store manager, with his flattop haircut and a nose like a potato, hovered over them, concerned. “We reviewed the security footage,” said the manager. “Kind of funny how that nut job pointed at them baseballs and then they whacked you on the noggin.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment, and all Julia heard was her heart thumping in her chest.

  The store manager cleared his throat. “Coincidence, I guess. Unless you believe in witches, which I don’t.”

  Dean blinked at them. “I don’t even remember what happened.”

  A worker dressed in a black-and-white referee’s outfit, the uniform of the store, came in through the swinging door.

  “So, the county sheriff is here, and he wants to see Julia.”

  She buried her face in her hands, not wanting to face him. “It’s my dad,” she told them.

  “Your dad is the sheriff?” asked the manager.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, shit.”

  A minute later, Julia’s father strode into the room. He wore the full cop getup that she had seen him leave the house in every morning since she could remember. He wasn’t the type of man you messed around with; she had seen some men try and pay dearly for it.

  “Sheriff Winters,” he said, introducing himself to the manager. He turned and saw his daughter. “Julia, you okay?”

  He put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

  “I’m fine. It’s Dean here who got tossed around.”

  Sheriff Winters turned to his nephew. “What the hell happened?”

  Dean looked up. “That boyfriend of hers attacked me. He’s psycho.”

  The sheriff turned to the manager. “Do you have the tape?”

  Not the tape, Julia thought. She was mad at William, but still wanting to protect him from the likes of her father. And the baseballs—what the hell was that about?

  They went back into the store, toward the security room. Through the swinging door, Julia caught a glimpse of a very odd guy about her own age, arrogant looking, standing in the aisle straight up like a Marine. Brown hair, smooth skin, and cold, empty eyes. He was dressed in a navy-blue pinstripe suit with polished dress shoes—not the usual outfit of her age group.

  And he was looking at her with those shark eyes.

  A chill went down her spine. What was it about this guy?

  Her father pushed past her. “We’re gonna take care of this. Come on, kids. I’ll give both of you a ride home in the squad car.”

  She hurried after her father, tapping him on the shoulder. “Dad, look at that weird kid back there.”

  The Sheriff turned. “Back where?”

  Julia hesitated to look at the oddball again, but she mustered her guts and turned around. “Right over…” she said, but navy-blue suit was gone.

  She and Dean followed her father back into the store. The sheriff said, “Julia, what was William’s last name again?”

  “Hawk.”

  “William Hawk,” he said to himself, “you are in for a world of hurt.”

  As they went out the front door, Julia knew that the weird boy had left, but somehow, she still felt his chilling gaze on the back of her neck.

  CHAPTER THREE

  For the next half-hour, I stood in the fields, watching the occasional car whiz past me, not sure what to do. An experienced hobo could’ve told me the best routes to take, which ones to avoid, how to eat, how to skulk. I was going to have to teach myself all those skills.

  Welcome to life on the run.

  I walked along the shoulder of the road, feeling the pebbles of the gravel skittering beneath my shoes. The sun was sinking toward the horizon. I had to figure something out, and soon.

  The first thing I admitted was that I didn’t know myself anymore, didn’t know what I was capable of, and so should take sufficient care to keep myself calm. I’d totally misjudged the situation in the sporting goods store and had nearly bludgeoned Julia’s cousin with a telekinetically tipped rack of baseballs. Who knew what else I could do?

  Then I thought about the legal ramifications.

  They’d certainly called the police. Which meant I would be in trouble if I went home. I knew I had to soon, but I was going to put it off as long as I could today.

  That wrecked me. This day was turning out so very different from how it had begun. I realized I had wanted the day to be different. What if I was getting my wish? Could I un-wish it now? Boring sounded pretty good at this point.

  I struggled along the road, gusted by the blast of wind with every passing car, preoccupied by my dilemma. There seemed to be nowhere to go.

  At last, with the sun touching the horizon, I felt fear plucking the strings of inner panic and decided to try hitching a ride. It didn’t matter to where, as long as it got me farther away from my town.

  I heard a car approaching. I turned and stuck up my thumb. It roared past me, my hair flying in the wind. In the next hour three more cars did the same.

  The problem was that I was a teenage boy, alone. Nobody in their right mind picks up teenage boys. It would’ve been easier if I’d put on a wig and a miniskirt, but I didn’t have the legs for it.

  Night had fallen, and all around the locusts were chirruping in the fields. I was tired, dehydrated, and absolutely panicking at the prospect of sleeping in a corn patch, but I had no choice now. Cars had been rare, and now I saw none. So I made my way into the pitiful desert cornfield, and I tore off stalks and leaves and made myself a bed—it reminded me of the ones I had seen chimps make on a National Geographic show. I lay down and covered myself as best I could, thinking I’d be up all night, but, exhausted, I soon crashed.

  I awoke to sunlight and bugs and corn all around. I felt as still as one of those cobs. Grunting, I got to my feet. I must have slept quite a while, because the sun was already almost directly overhead.

  Back on the highway, my stomach growling and my mouth dry as chalk, I waited. And waited. Then a big black Mercedes came blowing by me, not even slowing down as I stuck out a thumb. More cars whizzed past. Then I spotted a vehicle humming down the road my way. I couldn’t make it out at first, then finally I could see that it was an old truck. And it was slowing down as I stuck my thumb out.

  As it drew closer, I saw that the vehicle was a rickety pickup truck older than I was. Just a few streaks of green paint were still visible through the rust. Its springs squeaked rhythmically as it shuddered to a stop in front of me.

  I let the driver get a good look at me, then hustled over to the passenger door and leaned in.

  The driver asked, “Where are you going?” The driver was a man, but I couldn’t get a good look at him yet.

  “Away from the city.”

  “Then get in.”

  I hopped inside the cab and shut the door. The driver put the truck in gear and pulled back onto the road. As soon as I felt comfortable, I took a look at the driver. He was an older man, maybe sixty-ish—it was hard to tell—with shoulder-length, salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a beaded leather vest and intricate turquoise jewelry, suggesting that he lived on the nearby reservation. He had a leather-tanned face, with broad cheekbones, silver eyebrows, and an inscrutable expression.

  He peered at me under those silver brows, his eyes ancient and his gaze intense and intimidating. “What’s your name?” he said softly.

  “William,” I said. “Yours?”

  He paused for quite some time and did not even blink, just stared at me out of the corner of his eye. I wondered how long it would take for him to respond.

  “Before I tell you my name, I must first tell you a story.”

  “Okay,” I said, with a shrug. I was in no position to insist.

  He drew a deep breath. “I’ve never seen a seeker, but the Ancient One said that you will know one when you see one.”

  “Okay,”
I said again. That sounded strange but interesting. Surely this stranger couldn’t have any idea what was going on inside my head. I waited. What else could I do?

  “All things are connected, fed by the energy in the sky. Some of the energy is a good stream, and some is a bad stream. Each of us has a reservoir around ourselves that needs to be filled by these streams. We can choose which one to fill us. I can see your reservoir.”

  “You can, huh?”

  “Most people have it maybe this thick.” He held up his thumb and forefinger, about an inch apart. “But yours, yours cannot be contained inside of this vehicle. You have so much to fill and so much to give. The only question is—which stream will you use to fill it up?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Who was this guy? Was he just an oddball, someone who gave this New Age rap to every hitchhiker he picked up? Before hacking them to death with a chain saw? I looked in the back of the pickup. No chainsaw.

  “Now tell me what you’re running from,” he said.

  “Life,” I said.

  “I see. So where do you think you might be headed?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The old man settled back in his seat. I got the odd feeling he knew everything that was happening was predestined. “I have a cabin out on the reservation. Do you want to go there?”

  “Am I allowed?”

  “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “I’m not native. I heard that there were places there that only natives were allowed to enter.”

  “Maybe, but anybody can enter the reservation.”

  “In that case, it sounds fine to me.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy him, and we didn’t say much more for the next few hours. I felt the truck sway and rumble as he nimbly navigated the turns in the road that led up into the high-altitude forest.

  It was late afternoon when the truck pulled up to a small cabin tucked on the edge of a wooded valley. The structure had been simply built, just stacks of logs with corner notches.

  The old man got out of the pickup with much effort and gestured to the house. “Many generations of my family have called this home. Behind the cabin is a steep canyon, so don’t wander too far to take a piss at night or you’ll break every bone in your body.”

  I still hoped this guy wasn’t dangerous. I followed him into the cabin. It was a comfortable room with an old bearskin rug and a bed in one corner and an old sofa in the other. I sat on the sofa and watched the old man toss a couple chunks of wood on the fire.

  “You never told me your name,” I said.

  He drew a deep breath, and his face puffed up as if he were in physical pain. At last he said, “People usually call me Cy.”

  That sounded as though it was short for something. “Does it mean anything?”

  “Sure does,” he replied. “It’s short for sight. You see, there’s a lot more in this world than what most people see, but you can only see it if you have special sight. Just like me seeing you, I knew you was different. You’re a seeker. You and me got a lot to teach each other. You see, people have just about lost touch with who they really are. We’ve let our spirit become so dormant in us we hardly know how to connect with it anymore. And you—I’ve been told about you.”

  Told about me? I looked at the old Native American, wondering if he too had seen life the same way that I’d seen it a day ago. All signs indicated that he had. I hoped so. I didn’t want to be the only one.

  He asked if I was hungry. Was I ever!

  We had sandwiches and drank some kind of juice concoction that he said put hair on your gonads. Mostly we just rested up as night came on.

  Then Cy pointed to a single mattress in the corner with some old Navajo blankets thrown on top. “You can sleep there. Stay as long as you need.”

  I staggered over and collapsed on the mattress, totally exhausted from the events of the past two days. Cy set down a glass of water on the floor next to me, and I drank the whole thing in one swallow.

  Then I lay back down again, watching the tongues of fire lick the inside of the chimney, feeling hypnotized, like the best fires always make you feel. I let my thoughts wander. They flitted around between the family, friends and possible lawsuits that I was leaving behind. Then sleep overtook me, and I had strange dreams unlike any I’d experienced before, where people seemed to be trying to tell me something, though their faces and voices were blurred, and their messages garbled.

  The next day, I sat with my pants around my ankles, trying to remember those foggy dreams.

  I was in the privy that Cy had built adjacent to his cabin. This was the only place you could do your private business. It was ironic, I thought, after my ethereal experience last night, to be here in such a primitive way.

  When I got back to the cabin, I saw Cy coming out of the woods. He had a bag slung across his back.

  “Do you want some breakfast, William?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  We entered the cabin together. He set some water boiling, and a few minutes later, I was digging into a bowl of instant oatmeal. I could feel him watching me.

  I looked up at him. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

  “No, I already had some breakfast.”

  “What time is it?” I asked between bites.

  “Almost eleven o’clock,” he said. I could feel him studying me. “Something happened to you recently. Something staggering.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can feel it.”

  I swallowed and put down my spoon. “I have had a strange time of it the last day or so.”

  Cy nodded and listened as I told him the strange experiences of the last two days. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised. After I’d finished, he spoke. “My forefathers have passed down stories from generation to generation. They spoke of the great ones that had achieved harmony. Not harmony with self but with every living thing. My people have tried and tried for millennia to achieve this. There have even been stories told of whole civilizations perishing, then reigniting. I don’t know if these stories are based in fact. But I do know that the more one focuses on self, the less they can see it.”

  At that moment, I knew for sure that I could learn a lot from Cy.

  The rest of the afternoon, I made myself comfortable at Cy’s cabin. It was a spartan space with rough-hewn wooden furniture and a primitive sink. A few native throw blankets with geometric patterns were the only nods to comfort. I didn’t quite understand why he lived such a meager existence, since there were plenty of geological treasures on the shelves, on the chairs, on the floor. By that, I mean gemstones and raw minerals. Chunks of gold embedded in rocks the size of basketballs. Uncut raw diamonds the size of peach pits in a mason jar.

  “Cy, why don’t you sell some of this stuff? You could live a better life.”

  He was sitting in his deerskin chair, looking gaunt. “They’re not mine to sell.”

  “If you found it, then you can sell it.”

  He looked at me as though from a great distance. “Nobody owns the earth. We’re just caretakers.”

  He left it at that, and I didn’t try to ask him what he meant.

  The second morning, I woke up to an empty cabin. I lay on the humble mattress, smelling the odor that was rising from beneath my arms. I hadn’t showered in a few days, and it was becoming noticeable.

  I stumbled over to the kitchen and made another bowl of oatmeal and ate it in silence. This was how life was going to proceed for the moment—weird, yet somehow still ordinary.

  I went out onto the porch of the cabin, pulled on my shoes, and began to explore the property. Cy hadn’t done much to his little homestead. It was just trees, bushes, a few glens where there must have been underground water, and the valley, which opened wide off to the side. A small vegetable garden had been dug into the hard, rocky soil, but that was about it for landscaping.

  I went and stood at the edge of a small cliff near where the land dropped away into the valley. On the f
ar side of the valley was another house. It wasn’t too far as the crow flies—I could even make out a figure sitting on the porch. But to navigate down into and up out of the valley would take quite a while.

  I thought about going over to explore, but then I thought better of it. I turned and walked back to the cabin and sat down on Cy’s favorite deerskin chair and thought about my circumstances.

  An hour later, Cy returned from wherever he had gone. He saw me sitting in the chair. “You know what the source of all of mankind’s problems is?”

  “What?”

  “We can’t do what you’re doing. Sit in a room and be content. You’ve got the solution to all of life’s problems.”

  I gave him a half-smile. I certainly didn’t feel like I had the solution to anything at the moment.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Out,” he said, not looking at me.

  “Same place as yesterday?”

  “Why are you so curious about what I do?” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing?”

  I shrugged. “I walked around the property. I saw your neighbor sitting out on his porch, on the other side of the valley.”

  “That’s Sonny. He’s been living here since the beginning of time it feels like. I was going to head over there this afternoon. He’s got my shovel that I need to get back. You want to come?”

  That surprised me. “You want people to know that I’m here?”

  “I trust Sonny,” he said, “and I’m sure that Sonny would want to meet you.”

  An hour later, we were going through the trees, down into the gulch, and then scrambling up the side of the hill. The soil got under my fingernails, and the knees of my pants were caked in dirt.

  “Isn’t there any easier way to get there?” I said, out of breath.

  “We could drive,” Cy said, “but the road is around the other side there, and it takes forty minutes. This is the way I’ve always preferred. Closer to the earth.”

  When we reached Sonny’s house, I saw the figure that had been on the porch. This time, he was in his driveway with a brush in one hand and a can of stain in the other. He was slathering the stuff all over a decrepit rocking chair. As we drew closer, I saw that Sonny was an extremely old man. Behind him, his ramshackle cabin looked shabby but decently maintained. He was the type of old man who could keep up around the house.