A Dangerous Woman from Nowhere by Kris Radish

Author:Kris Radish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

THE FIFTH EVENING

The San Juaz Mine Camp

The world is a spinning circle filled with blues, reds, and greens, and Briar is looking at it all as if she were a bird, maybe a bald eagle dipping and swaying in the wind. She is above the mountains, and she soars miles and miles so she can see her ranch and then pass above Grant City and beyond. The river leaves a bold trail of blue, and it is summer, and there are wide spots of bright green along its banks. When she goes low and then lower, there are dots of color, flowers and bushes, lush with buds from the summer heat.

It is all real to her, the flying and the wind and the fact that she has turned into a bird. She wants to travel farther and see where Joseph and Nora taught her to survive and then dip her wings in a happy salute when she sees them working in the garden just at the edge of their barn and corral.

She would love to somehow swoop up Joseph and show him the world from so high and let him feel the wind in his long hair and the cool air on his face as they go higher and higher.

She would love to fly over Grant City, rest for a moment by the house she left before daylight not so many days ago, and tell the old woman she is fine and to please go free the poor dog who lives by the stables. “I am a bird now,” she would say, and then she would lift her wings and be back in the beautiful blue sky.

She would love to fly north from there and over the railroad tracks and beyond to the orphanage, its menacing dark windows and black fence offering a welcome to no one. Briar would swoop down and gather every child under her wings and fly them to a beautiful meadow. She would place them gently one by one into the tall grass and then fly slowly around and around and listen to them laugh and sing.

She would not land again, but fly and soar to the ocean, a place of mystery to her that she has dreamed of seeing since she first heard of the big water, rolling waves, and beaches stretching for so many miles you could never count them all. She would finally see the deep, magical ocean with its fish as large as train cars and the deep, dark water that seems endless and that they say touches the end of the blue sky.

But suddenly, there is a sound in her ear, and the world of a flying bird disappears and there is a pounding in her head so fierce she cannot move. It takes her a long time to remember where she is and who she is, and there is a fog covering her memory that she wills to lift, but it is slow leaving. The sound in her ear is a voice, familiar and deep.

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