Page 37 of Lily's Eagle

I rode fast, stopped only once to sleep at a seedy motel in an even seedier town, where the bedding very well might’ve given me fleas. I hope not. Normally, I’d have enjoyed the hell out of a ride like this, with the arrow straight roads bordered by vistas of green grass, endless sky and nothing but nature for miles. But a huge unknown was waiting for me at the end of this ride, both in terms of how Lily’s gonna react to me being there, as well as how everyone else will.

The road started growing progressively bad as I left behind the last major city on the way to the reservation. The town I passed through was full of moaning drunks and the only light in the twilight was the one coming from the huge liquor store, which by the looks of things is inside a barn. Dad wasn't kidding about the drunks. I don’t think I ever saw that many together in one place. I wonder what Lily made of it. She must’ve hated seeing it.

No one was at the gate to the reservation, so I just went straight through, the rumbling of my bike echoed in the near silent town as I rode through it. No one except a bunch of dogs prowled the streets. Dogs with mangy fur, ribs sticking out and a mean look in their eyes. Hunger will out meanness in the eyes of anyone, I guess.

It was nearly full dark by the time I reached the end of the town, without passing so much as a lit house, let alone anyone I could get some type of directions from. But the darkness showed me a glowing in the sky at the opposite side of town, which was much too large to be just a house. I headed towards it and wasn’t surprised to find what I guessed is all the residents of this town gathered on a field in need of a good mowing.

Lily was there too, she was the first one I noticed, but that’s nothing new. She’d be the first one I noticed even if it was pitch dark. Somehow, she always shines.

She saw me too. Kind of looked like maybe she’d been expecting me. Kind of even looked like she was happy to see me.

But what I never expected was the angry locals. Or that ten of them would have a gun pointed at me within five minutes of me finally reaching this place.

I should’ve expected it. Cross had warned me. But I only had Lily on my mind.

So now here I am, faced by several gun barrels and a lot of angry men and women, yelling at me.

My own gun is in my saddlebag. I’ll never reach it before the bullets start flying if they’re gonna fly. And I’m not about to die getting shot in the back like a coward. I have a knife, but that’s not gonna do me any good in this fight.

I can maybe talk my way out of this. Though knowing me…

It never ceases to amaze me how real and vivid everything becomes when you think you only have moments left to live. I can smell the grass in this field, the leather some of the people are wearing, their sweat and perfume too. And I can hear every leaf on the two ancient oak trees moving in the breeze, along with the whispering of the multicolored strips of cloth they tied to the branches. I can even smell the wax of the candles burning on a table where Lily was standing when I noticed her.

It’s also amazing how time just stops in times like this.

Lily’s not standing by the table with the candles anymore, she’s running towards me, yelling for them to lower their guns, that she knows me, that I’m not here to hurt any of them. There’s something very frantic and terrified in her voice, something I never heard there before.

I take off my helmet, toss it at my feet and raise both my hands. “I don’t know what you think I’ve done to you all, but I’m just here to visit my friend, Lily.”

That’s the exact moment that she reaches me, her normally very calm, dark eyes wide and fearful and just for me. Man, how I wish she’d look at me with such rupture in just about any other situation. But this one needs to be dealt with before someone grows tired of all the yelling and decides to pull the trigger and end it that way.

“And who’s she?” a man asks.

“Are they sending our own kind now? That’s disgusting?” another yells right after. “How can you do that to your people?”

This is not the time to tell them I know next to nothing about our people. Well, apart from what Lily told me over the years, which was plenty. I remember very little of that, though. She’s standing between me and the guns, so close I can smell the flowery shampoo in her hair and the fear on her skin.

“He’s with me,” she repeats. “He’s not here to hurt anyone.”

Yeah, well, I’m not about to go down without a fight though. But now’s not the time to mention that either. And she has no business shielding me, it’s supposed to be the other way around.

She gasps as I pull her back behind me and get between the guns and her, the way it’s supposed to be.

“How about you put your guns down and we talk?” I say.

“Talk about what?”

“Lower your guns first,” I say. There’s a couple of old-timers in some sort of traditional wear complete with headdresses hanging back at the edge of the half circle created by the gun pointing lunatics, but they’re standing completely still. Maybe they don’t want to prevent this, but more likely, they know that one wrong move or word could send bullets flying. I wish I knew what the right move was.

“They think you’re here to sell drugs,” Lily hisses in my ear, standing so close I can feel the heat of her breath on my cheek. Again, if this was any other situation, but a damn stand-off, it’d be perfect.

“I know him! He’s my friend” she yells, trying to get in front of me again, but I block her path with my arm.

“And how do we know you’re not working together?” a man yells. “We don’t know you either.”

I feel bad she had to hear that. Whatever else she came here looking for, I’m sure acceptance was at the top of her list.

“Please put your guns down,” she says.

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