Here you go, another Digital Potlatch post from BUFFALO LIGHTS (see sidebar). This introduces Part II of the book, “New Mexico Project.” Chapter 1 is called “Betrayal,” and it’s truly from the heart. The virtually paranormal events described here really happened, what can I say?
To access preceding chapters and the introduction, just visit the Buffalo Lights category page. You can read the full synopsis here.
Part II: New Mexico Project
Chapter 1: Betrayal
I heard it as soon as we hit I-80 and turned east: a keening, shrieking, angry sound, like from a spirit wronged (and mean as hell), accompanied by a flapping noise I couldn’t identify at first. That’s when I felt it, too, inside my chest.
The eagle-like bird-thing flapped and thrashed with all its might — I knew what it wanted: WEST! Its piercing cries stabbed me into recognition: this was my soul, fighting for survival. The creature struggled frantically. I saw it raking the inside of my rib cage with its sharp, hooked beak, looking for an escape.
I knew instinctively that this was a matter of life and death, though I had never felt anything like it before. This was real, as real as anything you can’t take a picture of. It seemed to throw itself furiously again and again against my ribs, flapping and screaming, but there was no chance: We weren’t going to New Mexico this summer. We had come as far west as Des Moines but no farther. We hadn’t planned on anything but returning to Maryland after visiting Kathy’s parents in the quiet little house where everything always stays the same.
I drove on, reeling from the stunning directness of it all as I accelerated around a semi and dropped back into the right lane to let the crazies pass. I hardly noticed them this time.
If a spirit wanted to get my attention, it couldn’t have picked a more appropriate animal form. As a metaphor, the caged bird was obvious, but this was more than mere imagery: the thing in my chest seemed to scream and flap in response when I spoke to it directly.
How could I possibly proceed? How could I not? The agony increased with every mile. I felt the eagle-thing growing weaker and thought I would crack with sadness. As we neared the Mississippi and the symbolic point of no return, I prayed to myself and promised not only to keep heading west next time but also to stay west. The creature heard and began to relax a bit — the flapping stopped. I knew what we had to do and I knew it was right. Everything was right, except that we were headed for Galesburg instead of Omaha. But what goes up must come down, and what heads east must soon go west. I felt the wild creature in my chest forgive me, just a little. This was a conditional forgiveness, after all.
As we whistled through northwestern Illinois, the traffic thinned out to a prairie-interstate conveyor belt. Most drivers floated along at 75 or so, evenly spaced, about a quarter mile apart. We had come this way many times before, and it always felt good to be out on the open plains, no matter which way we were headed. I knew most exits, rest areas, and eating places by heart: Kickapoo, Farmer City, and the like, scenes of gas stops, picnics, and emergency repairs over the years we’d spent going back and forth. It was like an extended neighborhood.
In that sense we had been expanding our territory westward from the East Coast all along, extending the Corridor of the Known southwest from Des Moines through vacation trips to Colorado and New Mexico. The eagle-thing must have hatched somewhere along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park or at the Rio Grande gorge. For now it was resting but wary. The spirit had revealed itself, all right, and made its point.
Now I had to keep my part of the bargain, or the next time it would break out and make its way to New Mexico without me — and what sort of shape would I be in if that happened?
Related posts:
- BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 5, “Dreamwatch”
- BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 3, “Missing Links”
- BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 2, “Blood Rites”
- BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 1, “Imprinting”
- BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part I, Chapter 4, “Real Estate for Dummies”
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