"You better be scared," she said with a little laugh and big smile, then
stepped up on her toes, put her arms around his neck and planted one huge,
hot, deep kiss in his mouth as she rubbed her vitals under her nightgown and
robe into him. "Did you...think...about me"" she whispered between her
kisses.
        "Ahhhh...Essss..." he whispered back when she gave him a break, "sure
I did..."
        "So...have you reconsidered?" and escalated her passion.
        He got  a hot flash or something and felt something growing, he says,
but he was right there in his head. He pulled back slowly, looked in her
luscious eyes and gingerly said, "Es...precious...mi bella senorita...I want to
tell you yes," took in a deep breath and let it out, "...but nothing's changed. I
can't lie to you..."
        She looked in his eyes a few seconds, then sadly asked, "still...the other
one?"
        "Still...." He wished he could say better or other words. He wished he
could take her to bed. His body was crying for her. 'And what if you lose
BOTH of them,' his libido pled. But Jess flashed from his soul to his mind
like a hot wire across battery poles - the memory of when and how she had
told him that she would wait for him. "Still..." he repeated.
        "Well...she must really be magnifico. Your will is steel," and brushed
her loins against his once more, "and not just your will, no? You want me.
You desear me, Kit."
        "Yes I do...yes I do desire you...God, Es, you know I do."
        "But you want her more," she said as her eyes moistened up. He nodded
yes. "Then you are either a fool...or the most romantic man in the world, Senor
Cody....Well...you will have to beg for me...if you come back with empty
hands."
        He loved her so much right then for being able to handle all that with that
much grace. He kissed her forehead, and then her eyes, sipping up her tears
before they fell down her rose cheeks.
        "I hope I'm not a fool," he whispered and put an arm around her back as
he turned to close the valve on the lantern. He walked them around Juliet in
just the moonglow from outside and they slowly walked hip to hip and arm in
arm back to her cabin door where he kissed her face all over, then each hand,
before saying goodnight and slowly ambling down the steps and backward
across the snow, looking at her looking at him from her doorway until she
closed the door.
        He gradually recollected himself as he continued to his cabin, then got
another ole Frog out of that fridge on his way back in to Pute in the living room
and tried to get his mind back to work.
        P was done with the printing, so Kit keyed "C" and the screen showed a
constitution. He looked that over awhile, his mind still going back to Es, then
Jess; and he consulted Pute and got "go" again. They had had so much debate
on it all over the years, and especially the last months, that they already felt it
was "there", but Kit still wanted the P's final check, not wanting to hurt any
more feelings. So he keyed the printer for 192 constitutions, keyed "P" and
Puter scrolled up a plan. They studied that and it was fine too, so he keyed the
printer again. Then they confirmed two letters.
        While everything was getting printed he changed software and did his
taxes, ending up owing around $7,ooo for the federal and state yearly roundups
and sent instructions on e mail to his lawyer - BR in Santa - to send that much
on the 15th out of Kit's brokerage account along with the returns. He loved
trust. And people he could. He sent instructions to his broker on what stock to
sell to raise the cash, then put on the gloves he got out of his jacket hanging on
the brass rack just inside the kitchen and started collating all the copies and
keyed Pute to print out the address stickers for the envelopes that were
stacked up on those wide rough-hewn pine planks of the floor. He filled the
Manila envelopes, thinking about his time with Stacie in Manila in 1969 and
wondering how they got the name, stuck the addresses on, sealed, stamped
and put them in a small suitcase.
        As he took off the gloves he decided to get some sleep before bugging
out, but put in P's "brain" ware and "talked" with him some about everything.
Their feelings were high and confident. Then Puter asked, "weather is what?"
and Kit switched software again, hooked up the cellphone and "Lappy"
checked out the weather via the Net. They had clouds over them real time
and forecast of same into the morn.
        "Weather's with us," Kit typed, reporting in redundancy, and got a wry
remark from his Puterness, then they went through their plan one more time
before Kit stopped, went to the kitchen, poured a glass of chocolate milk,
walked to the door and looked outside through the panes. He drank as he
looked out over the yard, then the other cabin and barn, then out the runway
until the pines blocked his view and then he saw what seemed to be a meteor
streak through the atmosphere, it seemed real close by!
        "Wow! That was close!" he said to himself. It had almost seemed to fly
in at the area at the far end of the runway and he wondered if he might not be
wise to go out and see if it had set off a fire. He took another drink of the milk
as he took his mind through where all their fire equipment was and wondered
if he might not be just a little too tired and imagined that meteor, then his mind
wandered to more thoughts of Es as he looked up to her window, then more
of Jess. Then he saw them!
        His eyes welled with brine...chills coursed his back and limbs...his body
hair stood straight out and his goose had laid its bumps. His ocular faculties -
he was trying to think like a scientist - were showing him a person...an "Indian".
A Native American. Almost a hauntingly familiar one. He looked like a Chief
("He just did," Kit says)...on a white horse...walking up the runway! Kit
thought surely he was hallucinating or something, and auto fast-tracked back
through his drug use.
        They stopped in front of the barn. Facing him. Looking at him looking out
through the panes. He opened the door and stepped onto the threshold. And
the horse and the Chief stood there by the barn, steam blowing out their nostrils
in unison. That's when Kit thought that if it was a hallucination, it was a dam
real enough one. He didn't know if he had a crazy neighbor or what. He
stepped forward out of the doorway and the horse lifted a hoof and pawed at
the ground and made that sound horses do, you know, when you blow out of
your mouth flapping your lips. Ole Codeman was just not sure what the heck
was happening in his neighborhood. Except that he was seeing it. Pretty dam
sure. He wished the others were seeing it with him. Anyone.
        Then the Chief began sign language. Kit says it seemed he was saying he
liked what Kit was about to do in the coming time. And that the Chief would
help all he could. And that Kit had a darn good chance at it. Now, Kit had not
taken sign language classes. But he swares that that's what all those signs
looked like. Or something was telling his mind. He was just staring, mouth
open, breath quick and shallow, you know how you do, heart beats felt
throughout the body, hoping he was interpreting correctly, then nodding and
attempting to thank the Chief. In sign language. Then tried to say it, but nothing
came out. You know how that is too, I bet. He stepped forward more and the
huge white stallion reared easily, waving his front legs and hooves.
        The Chief signed, "stop", and Kit stopped. No problemo there. The
Native man waved his hand from his heart out toward Kit, tugged the reins
gently to his right and Horse started them back out the runway. Kit waved his
hand out from his heart, which he could still feel and hear pounding.
        He stood there outside the door. Stupefied, at best. He followed them
with his ocularities out the runway until the pines blocked his view, so started
out to see them and, he was thinking, follow them. Then he saw another
"meteor" emanate practically from the area near the end of the runway, it
seemed, though the trees still obstructed his view, and head East - under the
overcast - until it vanished into the clouds!
        'Uh - oh,' he thought, 'disconnect.' Then he said outloud, "O...K, Cody...
maybe there are UFO's...or maybe we're waayy past bedtime...." He looked
over to Jul and Ri's and there was not a light. Nor anyone in sight. "Dam," he
whispered. It sure had seemed real, he told himself. And he hadn't done any
of the drugs, he remembered thinking, well, except for that little bit of coke
with Dusty. But that wouldn't do that! He had sure never experienced
anything like that before, no matter the better living through chemistry in him.
        "Woo," he quietly added. Something must be going on in his head, he
reasoned. Or he's got one interesting neighbor with a quiet rocket. He just
stood out there for some while, looking around, holding his near-empty glass
of milk, until the cold started to hit him. Then he walked a few more steps
over to where they had stopped in front of the barn and...his ears started
ringing...and he felt something. Something.
        "What the heck?!" he said (and always retells the story the same way).
He felt somedangthing. And stood there awhile. Just absorbing it, if nothing
else. And thought he heard a horse. Then a soft breeze came up. From the...
West, he was pretty sure. And he thought he heard a quiet, deep, male voice
say, "Lion Eagle," the same name Kit had heard come out of the air when he
was at the Shiprock while hitching and hiking North on Route 666 back in
1980. Then a breeze came from the North. Just a wisp. Then South. Then he
felt a little blow from directly overhead and started to feel a little spooked.
Then there was nothing more.
        He stood there until the cold made him move. And he would start
toward the cabin, then stop, look around, then go on some more. Eventually,
he was back inside and closed the door, looked out, but there was nothing
more to see. He was cold as ice and went into the living room and to the
fire, threw three logs on, then sat and putered the event into P. Wasn't long,
though, before he layed down on the couch and fell asleep. Fast.

Next page