Midnight Flight

  "He says hello." Natani told me.

  "Hello, Wind Song," I replied.

  Natani handed me the reins, which he wanted me to take in my left hand first.

  "Never let go of the reins," he said. "It is how you talk to Wind Song, to tell him which way to turn and when to stop. He is rein trained." Natani showed me how to lay the reins on Wind Song's left side to turn him right and vice versa.

  "Do not pull back when you are standing still. He will think you want to go back. Hold the reins like a bird: too tight and you will choke it, too loose and it will fly away, daughter of the tortoise.

  "Wind Sang likes you, but he will want to ride you and not you ride him. It is natural to him. He is a proud animal, full of spirit, so be firm with your movements. You must feel his moves, and when he starts to turn where you don't want him to turn, stop him, because once he is into it, it will be hard to make him change his mind."

  "Do I say giddap?" I asked.

  Natani smiled and shook his head. "You watch too many cowboy-and-Indian movies. You press firmly with your heels into his sides when you want him to go forward. Don't worry about hurting him. You won't, but he will know you are serious if you press firmly. Bounce with him, daughter of the tortoise." Natani then slapped Wind Song on the rump and he started around the corral.

  Bounce I did and I came down too hard and fast. Natani told me I was being too stiff. I knew I had to hide my fear, but it was hard. Finally. I discovered that Natani was right: If I relaxed, it was less difficult and I didn't bounce as hard. I softened and I could feel I was riding better and better. After a few more trots. Wind Sang stopped as if he was testing me. and Natani urged me to move him ahead. I did so, firmly kicking with my heels. He began to trot again and Natani shouted for me to practice turning him.

  "Firmly. firmly," Natani called to me. "Do everything to show him you mean it."

  It was easier than I had expected, and soon I began to enjoy it. I even turned him sharply, then started around again just to see if I could make him do that. My courage was building with every minute I rode.

  Look at me. I thought. Look at me. Who on the street in Atlanta would believe Phoebe Elder would be riding a horse bareback?

  On my next turn. I saw M'Lady One standing next to the fence. She was smiling, but it wasn't a friendly, happy-for-me smile. It was impish. I looked to Natani, but he didn't see her.

  As we drew closer, she leaned over the fence. "Having a good time. Phoebe bird?"

  I was about to say yes when she flicked a cigarette lighter, one of those that had a knob permitting you to increase the flame. Wind Song caught sight of it and reared sharply to his left, whipping into a gallop. I tried holding him back, but he was excited and afraid. I thought he was actually going to try to leap over the fence, but he stopped short and raised his forelegs. I lost my grip and slid off his back, splashing down into the horse manure.

  M'Lady One, now joined by the other two buddies, roared with laughter. Wind Song trotted away and stared at me, snorting, brushing the ground with his right hoof like a bull about to charge. Then Natani entered the corral and walked toward him. He held out his hand and placed it on the horse's head. For a moment Wind Song looked like he would throw it off. but he didn't. He calmed down and stood still, his tail slapping at flies again.

  "I guess she's a born rider, huh. Natani?" M'Lady One called. Natani said nothing. He helped me up and I started to brush off.

  "It's lonesome in the saddle since my horse died." M'Lady Two sang, and the three of them walked away laughing.

  Natani stared after them, his eyes dark. Then he tilted his head as if he heard something and looked off to the right where some clouds slid beside each other, the bellies of them all dark. "She flicked a lighter. Natani. She frightened Wind Song."

  He nodded. "I saw." He continued to stare out at the clouds, "The wind is angry. There will be thunder inside us. That will be enough for today."

  What does that mean? I wondered. I stood there and watched as he led Wind Song back to the stables. I was so angry and frustrated. Maybe that was what he meant by the thunder inside us. There was enough inside me to cause a flood, but all I did was mumble curses under my breath as I went to the showers to clean off the manure as best I could.

  Afterward. I told Robin and Teal what I had done and what had happened. I also told them what Natani had said as he looked off at some dark clouds in the distance. Gia was nearby and listened, but these days she was more introverted than ever. She kept her distance, kept to herself as if she was afraid we would do or say something that interfered with her thoughts.

  Sometimes. I would catch her pausing in her work, staring at the hacienda, her lips moving, but no sounds coming from her. After a while she would realize I was watching her and she would return to work.

  At dinner she was no less quiet and to herself. She ate, did her chores, spoke only when she had to speak, then returned to the barn barracks where she read over what she had written in her notebook, did some homework, and went to sleep. She was going to sleep earlier and earlier each night. Robin asked me about her. She and Teal had noticed the dramatic changes, too, but whenever I asked Gia if she wanted us to do anything, she shook her head and said nothing. Once she did say. Not now."

  Did she mean she wanted nothing now or nothing was wrong now?

  I assumed her behavior might have a lot to do with Mindy and how much she missed her. Despite the way she used to snap at her and criticize her. Mindy was still closer to her than we were. It made sense. She had spent more time with her.

  Occasionally. I would see her staring at Mindy's cot, but even her staring was different now. She seemed to be seeing things. Her eyes would grow larger and smaller, her lips would move, and sometimes she would shake her head or nod slightly. She was so intense about it, she was lost in it. The barn could fall down around us, and she would still be standing there, looking at that empty cat. I thought. She heard nothing, would respond to no one, and then, when she was finished, just turn and curl up on her cot.

  Didn't Dr. Foreman see these changes in her? I wondered. Every day after we had returned from our desert ordeal. I anticipated some sort of therapy session with Dr. Foreman, either with the three of us or one at a time, but she wasn't around as much. We didn't see her at dinner for three nights in a row, but we did see the van coming and going with her.

  "She's probably working on replacements, not that I have any high hopes about us being released any too soon." Robin said.

  I imagined she was right. There did seem to be a new stirring about the ranch. The buddies were on our backs less and more to themselves, one day going off on a so-called R-and-R trip and returning laden with lots of goodies. I was sure. They were too happy and lighthearted. We didn't dare go to the back of the house to spy on them, but we had little doubt they were partying.

  And then, a little more than two weeks after our return, it happened.

  We would spend many hours reviewing the details, frying to make some sense of it. We would also spend a lot of our energy trying to forget it. It would be the stuff from which nightmares were made. Every scream I heard thereafter would nudge the memories and fill me with cold shudders. The same would be true for Robin and Teal, maybe even more so, especially for Teal. There was never a question about her being the weakest of the three of us, the most thin-skinned, although by the time this was over, she was probably as hard as a turtle shell compared to the friends she had and the friends she would make.

  Natani once told me that life, time, experiences, spin more and more of the cocoon around you, insulating you against more of the same in the future or anything that can hurt you.

  "We are truly like trees," he said. "As their bark thickens and they grow taller, wider, so do we."

  I suppose it was his way of telling me not to be afraid of life, but to profit from it, to always be a student, to never turn my back on anything. One of the first things he had told us when we had first arrived was "I know you are not
happy. But you must remember that life's sorrows often bring great joys." With that attitude, he would never be depressed, never be sad very long. It made him as strong as the tree trunk he sometimes resembled.

  It's no exaggeration to say that sometimes a series of events or even a single event would make you feel as if you had passed through a lifetime. That night was one of those times. It seemed to last forever, and for a while it was as if nothing had come before and nothing could come after.

  I woke with a start. My cheek felt like a cold hand had been on it, a very cold hand, the hand of death itself. I listened and thought I was still sleeping, dreaming, because what I heard seemed so far off, seemed like something corning from deep down inside me, a voice echoing up from a well or out of a tunnel, a long, thin cry.

  I sat up.

  The stars were blazing, but there was more light than usual and it wasn't from what Natani called "the pregnant moon." I scrubbed my cheeks with my palms and swung myself around. Gia's cot was empty.

  Curious and also confused now. I slipped on my coveralls, shoved my arms through my shirt, and put on my clodhoppers. I stood up and looked at Robin and Teal, who were both asleep, their backs to me.

  The scream I had heard in my dream grew louder and became a chorus.

  "Robin!" I cried. "Robin, Teal."

  Robin turned and groaned. Teal did not wake up. "Whaaa?" Robin groaned.

  "Listen, What is that? Listen."

  She ground her eyes with her fists as if she heard through them and then sat up slowly,

  "What do you think that is?"

  "I don't know," she said.

  I went to Teal's cot and poked her in the shoulder. She spun around angrily and looked up at me.

  "What do you want? It's not morning already, is it?"

  "Listen," I said.

  "What?"

  Robin was getting dressed, too. "Shut up and listen," she ordered.

  Teal sat up, groaning. Then her eyes widened. "What is it?"

  "We don't know. Came on," I said. "Get dressed."

  Reluctantly, she did and the three of us went to the door. I hesitated. The screaming was louder now, much louder. I opened the door and it looked as if the whole world was on fire. The blaze that came from our right had flames that seemed to be scorching the very stars. The three of us stepped out, astounded, our faces caught in a ghoulish yellow glow.

  Natani and his nephew were rushing about.

  The hacienda was consumed in flames. The screaming we heard came from the rear.

  "Someone's trapped." I said, and we hurried across the yard and toward the rear of the house. When we got there, we stared up in shock.

  The slanted roof upon which we had climbed to spy on the buddies was streaked with flames. Part of the center of it had fallen in. In the windows we could see the buddies, all three of them looking out at us, their faces so illuminated by the flames that licked and traveled along the edges of the main house that they looked as if the fire was already burning within them, making them glow like lightbulbs.

  The front of the hacienda was consumed in even bigger flames so that the fire had sandwiched them inside the house. M'Lady Three tried to step out of the window, but the roof in front of her became a bed of fire almost the same instant. The fire seemed truly to counter every move they made, every idea they had far escaping.

  Behind us. Natani and his nephew were struggling to get a ladder up against one yet-to-beconsumed section of the roof. We watched as Natani's nephew climbed up the ladder as quickly as he could, smacking at the flames with a wet sack to see if he could make a pathway far the buddies.

  We could see the fire inside the house eating away the walls behind them. M'Lady Two, stepped out of the window and turned toward Natani's nephew, who was now at the top of the ladder, beating at the flames. She lifted her left arm protectively and edged forward in his direction, but the roof, weakening all around that window, gave way and in the same instant we saw her fall into the belly of the fire. She went down without a sound. It was a sight so unreal. I had to convince myself I wasn't still asleep on my cot in the barn.

  The flames as if in a march of victory rose to heights above the windows. Through them. I could see M'Ladies One and Three. They were screaming, but we couldn't hear them. It was a silent movie in vivid color. The roof above them caved in and the house seemed to crumble and fall into itself. Natani's nephew leaped from the ladder as it, too, fell forward. He hit the ground nimbly and Natani helped him up.

  All of us stepped back farther and farther. The waves of heat were burning our faces.

  "Get back." Natani shouted at us. "Back, back."

  We retreated to the center of the yard, where we stood and watched the house burning. Off in the distance, like lanterns in the night, two revolving lights appeared. Someone was coming, but far too late. I thought.

  Behind us, the horses were neighing in fear and kicking at their stall doors. Natani rushed back, his arm extended upward, his hand tracing the embers that were being carried in the smoke. I realized his concern immediately. They were moving toward the barn and the barn was dry, especially the roof.

  I joined his nephew and him and we got the horses out of the barn and into the corral.

  "They'll still be very frightened," Natani said.

  He ordered his nephew to open the corral so the horses could go as far as they needed. Then he turned his attention to the other animals. I worked at his side far what I later realized was hours. Robin and Teal began to help as well. Natani's foresight proved correct. A section of the horse barn caught frt. His nephew tried to contain it with their water hoses, but it was too little and had limited reach. It wasn't long before the horse barn was too far gone to save,

  The lights I had seen belonged to a fire truck and an ambulance with two paramedics. There wasn't much for them to do but stand by like us and watch the hacienda burn to the ground. Soon after they had arrived, a sheriffs patrol car drove up and then another.

  Exhausted from our efforts to save all the animals. Robin. Teal. and I sat in front of our barn barracks, which had escaped the embers because of the wind's direction. We watched the police, firemen, and paramedics conferring with Natani. It all remained unreal to me. Their faces glowing, the flames, the crackle of the fire, the tower of smoke that the wind carried into the desert. Through it, the stars twinkled as if heavens approved of it all.

  'Where's Gia?" Teal asked. and Robin and I looked at each other.

  During all the excitement, our frantic activity and terror, none of us had thought about her.

  "I haven't seen Dr. Foreman either." Robin said.

  We turned back to the dwindling conflagration and stared at the flames like three hypnotized people, no one speaking, no one moving. Finally. Teal leaned against me. I put my arm around her and Robin put her arm around me. It was the way the police and the woman from the social service agency found us. We were like three girls frozen, discovered at the top of some very, very high mountain. I'm sure we looked as if it would take a crowbar to pry us apart.

  We had sat there together throughout the night and into the first morning light. The fire had burned the house to its foundation. It still smoldered enough to send up a significant tower of smoke I was sure could be seen for miles and miles.

  Strangely, other Indians appeared out of the desert as though they had always been out there. I couldn't imagine from where they had all come, but at least a few dozen men and women and some children were on the property. I saw from the way they circled Natani and spoke to him that they respected him greatly. Later. I would learn that he was actually a descendant of a famous Navajo medicine man, and the Indians had high regard for inherited powers.

  The woman from the social service agency introduced herself as Mrs, Alexia Patterson, but insisted we call her Alex. All three of us had been through enough layers of the juvenile system to understand it was her way to get us to see her as a friend and not a bureaucrat. A sheriffs officer was with her when she fir
st approached us. I could see that he knew exactly what the ranch was used far and who we were. He wore a hard look of accusation and suspicion and wanted to talk to us first.

  "Let them clean themselves up," Alex told him. "They've worked hard helping with the animals and everything. Lieutenant."

  He hunted a reluctant okay and we walked in a daze to an outside sink where we washed our faces and hands, our necks and arms. The stench of smoke and burned wood was so thick it was deeply embedded in our very skin. It would take more than a rinsing to get it off our bodies. It would never wash off our souls and hearts.

  While we cleaned up. Alex and the sheriffs deputy stood off to the side talking and watching us. The terror and shock we had experienced leveled off, but rushing in to replace it were waves of anxiety. What would happen to us? What had happened to Gia? What did the authorities think about us?

  "How are you doing. girls?" Alex asked, walking over to us.

  "Ginger peachy." Teal told her.

  Alex didn't blink. She smiled and nodded. "That, um, barn or building over there?" She pointed to our barracks. "That's where you girls slept?"

  "Yes," Robin said. "It's the first-class accommodations here."

  "I think." the sheriffs deputy said, stepping up beside Alex. "that the time for smart talk is well over," He glared at us and no one spoke.

  "This is Lieutenant Rowling, girls. He and I have to ask you questions. Why don't we all go into that building then and have a talk," Alex said in as sweet a voice as she could muster. Lieutenant Rowling nodded his approval, but kept his eyes fixed on us with the accuracy of a pair of well-aimed pistols.

  We all walked to the barracks.

  After we entered. Alex stopped and looked around the Spartan quarters. She was truly surprised that the floor was covered in straw and all the cots but one were without mattresses, pillows, or blankets.

  "I don't understand." she muttered, and looked at the sheriffs deputy, who just shrugged. "Let's sit here." she said, nodding at my cot, which was the closest.

  We sat on it and Lieutenant Rawling pulled another one closer. Alex sat on that, but he stood glaring down at us,