Phoenix Fire (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

Grandma Myrena awoke with a startled gasp, her body soaked in perspiration.

Something sharp, not pain, had awakened her, a warning prod with bright, silent, flashing spurts like lightning diffusing through a far off cumulus cloud cluster. It was not so much a dream but an interruption to her sleep.

Within the quiet cloud cluster of flashing had come the tranquil face of Carlton, his lips moving without words or sound. In sleep she had strained to hear the words that his lips were trying to form but she could not. Then, Carlton's face had slowly altered with each silent quake of light, like a computer screen morphing altered images for identification. Carlton's face became Jason's face.

Grandma Myrena saw Jason's beatific countenance quaking with the light, then changing to a plaintive mien of sorrow and pain. There was something familiar about the desert backdrop in the dream, flaring out in all directions around Jason's pulsing image. In her sleep she had moaned in distress, reaching with feeble hands to caress Jason's tortured brow. His face was awash with a hot gritty sheen and he wanted to speak. His lips opened and closed without sound, like a phonograph needle stuck in a record's groove. The lips in rote movement had become the warning prods and Myrena had awakened.

She pushed the afghan away from her flushed and sweaty body, her breathing rapid and raspy. She was wide-eyed and more alert than she was in years.

She was a pragmatic woman, not given to delusional thinking. She had always been a clear headed, focused, in charge type of person. She had throughout her life put little stock in people who professed paranormal abilities. She was not a naysayer or dogmatist on the subject but she did have a healthy skepticism. There was a certain rigidity in the way she had lived her life, but she had never consciously closed her mind to beliefs of others which were contrary to her own. Add to this the fact that she seldom dreamed and Myrena's perplexity was easily understood.

She sat up in the large, comfortable recliner and tried to concentrate on slowing her breathing. She felt both dazed and somehow enlightened She knew with some awkward certainty that the dream was not just an idle meaningless aberration. Through a misty dimension that she could not comprehend she was sent a message. It was not clear from whom the message had come, from Carlton, from Jason, from God?

She was in a displaced dither, alone and becoming anxious. She knew not only that a message was sent to her but that she needed to act upon that message. She forced herself again to take slow, measured intakes of air. She needed to calmly assess the dream. There was something niggling at the edge of her consciousness, persistent, trying to get through. It was something about the dream. It was something in the dream, niggling at her.

She closed her eyes tightly, put her fingers to her temples and applied pressure. She dropped her chin onto her bosom, hoping, praying, for some extrasensory revelation, some subliminal elucidation. The message had come from so far or so close, certainly from a dimension or plane of which she was not familiar. Surely there had to be more to prompt her action. Surely such an incredible mind event could not be merely coincidental or an elaborate tour de force by a capricious God. There must be gist to the message.

What was it?

The dream had to have some meaning. She concentrated on each surreal segment of the dream that remained in her memory:

Carlton's face quaking into sharp focus, his lips forming silent words that teased her comprehension … Jason's face, quietly flashing into chisel-like prominence, like a sculpture on onyx, gritty, tired, forlorn, and resigned. Beyond the edges of his image, flaring out all around into a dissipating white light, was a desert landscape. A high desert landscape?

Suddenly, the desert in her dream came to Myrena with temple throbbing recall and relevance. She became excited, euphoric, with the growing awareness of the dream's intended meaning. It had to be the intended meaning.

When Carlton and Jason were in their early teens, John and Myrena had taken them on several occasions to a spot north and west of Bartlett Dam, near the Bartlett Reservoir, just south of the Horseshoe Dam and Reservoir. It had become one of the boys’ favorite picnic spots in the spring and fall. Jason loved the area and had often as an adult gone there for relaxing quiet time. Had the land not been state and federally owned, Jason would have undoubtedly considered a resort project for the area.

Had Jason gone there?

Was that the message the dream had intended for Myrena?

Jason's car was found not too far from that area. Had he taken a hike and gotten lost? That would have been out of character for Jason. Yet, with all that had happened recently, he might not have been thinking clearly.

As she sat in her recliner she became convinced that the dream was an omen. No other explanation came to her. Coincidence was simply not an option.

She felt the quickening of her pulse, a surge of adrenaline, and, for the moment, she might have been young again, awaiting the doorbell and the arrival of a young man named John, the college heartthrob who kids today might call a 'hunk,' the young man she most definitely was going to marry. She smiled through the nostalgia, her eyes blurring with tears, and through an incipient pain that reminded her of her imminent date with destiny.

She picked up the remote control call pad and touched the button that would bring Wardley.

Just as Wardley stepped into the sun room the telephone rang.

Chapter Thirty-three

Jenny felt the need to call Grandma Myrena.

Not knowing exactly what she would say, she knew that it was important to keep Myrena informed, even if there was nothing to report. Jenny was surprised when an excited Grandma Myrena came on the line.

“Jenny, my dear, I've had the most remarkable experience, a dream, actually, and while the world might see me as 'flipping my lid,' you must trust me.”

There was strength and hope in Myrena's voice, much like the time she and Jenny had first met. The strong sweet matriarch was infecting Jenny with fresh hope just listening to her.

“I know where Jason is!” Myrena paused just long enough to let the words sink into Jenny's consciousness.

Jenny could not contain herself. “Oh, God! Grandma Myrena, where is he?”

“It's okay, Jenny, settle down. I'm about to tell you. Just a bit northeast of Carefree, there's an old campground with an abandoned well. The well top still has its rock foundation for the most part and there's a warning sign to keep people away from it. It's north of Bartlett Dam, off the old Horseshoe Dam Road, not far from the Bartlett Reservoir. It's east and south of where Jason's car was found.” Myrena stopped to gather in her rapid breathing.

“How do we get there?” Jenny asked.

“Okay, Jenny, are you at Jason's car?”

“Yes.”

“Then come back south and take Carefree Highway east to Cave Creek Road. Take that road north and east through Carefree. Do you know that area?”

“Yes, I know it. How many miles east past Carefree?”

“Maybe ten miles. Watch for the old Horseshoe Dam Road. Turn left off Cave Creek Road onto Horseshoe Dam Road, go north about ten miles. As I recall, the road bends a little to the west and goes north again. You will see the campground area and the abandoned well off to your east … Jason is somewhere near there, a little west, I believe, within a mile or so. He's between two rises and out of sight of the campground. He probably doesn't know how close he is to the campground. He used to love going there as a teenager. He and Carlton loved that place.”

“But how do you know all this, Grandma Myrena?”

“There's no time now to explain, Jenny. I'll tell you later. Just trust me. Get there as soon as you can. Convince the authorities that he is there. He will need some medical assistance.” Myrena sighed deeply, winded by her hurried recital.

“I'm on my way. I'll call you back when we find him, Grandma Myrena. Please don't worry. We will find him.”

*****

After Jenny had convinced Sgt. Denny of the possible location of Jason, Denny had contacted the Rural Metro Fire Department in Carefree and told them of the campground site. He asked that they meet us there.

Then, she was driving east on Carefree Highway, Gordon Lightfoot's song and lyrics playing in her mind while so many other thoughts were crazily running amok. Grandma Myrena had said something about a dream. A 'dream' had told her where Jason was? It seemed on the one hand incredible and, strangely, on the other, perfectly natural that Grandma Myrena would know where Jason was.

Other than the excitement and anticipation running through her Jenny was more calm than she was in days, probably weeks. Her own lightning experience had opened her mind to a whole new world of psychic possibilities. She believed in the power of the mind and the soul. She believed that there were limitless possibilities and opportunities for psychic phenomena that many people would perceive as 'black magic.' It did not really matter to Jenny what others might perceive. She had lived through a mind and soul altering event. She could never again discount the relevance of something which might stretch the rational mind to its outer limits.

Jenny somehow knew that they would find Jason. Grandma Myrena's strong and excited voice played back to her: “I know where Jason is … you must trust me … he will need some medical assistance ...”

What had brought Jason back to a spot he had known in his childhood? So far from his car? Had he wandered too far in the wrong direction? Gotten lost? Was he searching for a piece of himself, his soul? A reason to live? What? Why?

“Oh, just be all right, Jason! Just be all right!” she spoke to her silent space. “I love you so much. We will make everything all right.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Supine on the hot pebbly earth, Jason looked into an indifferent and unforgiving sky.

A great stupor consumed him, the sun now nothing more than a hot constant cloak upon his body. Flies, gnats, other flying insects buzzed in and around his ears, landed on his cracked and bleeding lips, but he was numbly desensitized to their raspy sounds and nibbles. He had adapted to their environment. He was now a part of their world. He could feel their tiny stinging jabs, but they no longer registered in his brain as pain. They were lost in his great soporific detachment.

A periodic passing shadow fell across his closed eyelids, and his mind would record an image of vultures flying overhead.

He felt slithering, sliding movement across his hands and arms, and vaguely wondered about lizards, snakes, other denizens of this parched land. But there was no sense of caring, an odd lacking of concern, dread, and fear. It seemed not so important anymore that these emotions had taken leave, temporarily or forever. He could not say, or even be bothered with the thought. It was as though he had indeed become a part of the vast desert landscape.

Just when it seemed that he would simply drowse into nothingness, flashing and graphic pictures, like filmstrips, came across his cognitive screen. Sharp and dimensional, Jenny's face came to him, beautiful, haunting, pinched with hurt. Then, Grandma Myrena's face came to him, sad, wrinkled, loving. Carlton's face came, too, confused and sorrowful. They passed in the darkness behind his eyes, trying to tell him something, beseeching him to stand and go on. Persistently, poignantly, the flashing images came. So real the faces seemed to him there in the searing heat of the desert. When he opened his eyes, the flashing stopped.

With his eyes open, some reality returned. Thirst returned like a gnawing relentless itch, back from a dark hiding place to plague him, to curse him.

At one point he saw two coyotes coming cautiously toward him, from over a rise, stopping, staring at him, jerking, quickly running back the way they had come, only to return and stand within twenty feet of him. They would finally leave again and disappear beyond the reach of his eyes.

With the coyotes had come an indefinite, subliminal memory. It had something to do with the desert rise over which the coyotes had come, a distant yesterday, shimmering in the narcotic darkness of his mind. It was fuzzy but coming more into focus.

Then, it was there!

He knew this place! This space before him had something to do with his childhood, with Carlton, with his mother and father, with his Grandma Myrena and Grandpa John. He had played here with Carlton, war games, Cowboys and Indians. He and Carlton was so close then, sharing make believe worlds and future dreams.

What had happened to that happy world he had known? His memory was vague with abstractions, little bits and pieces of perception. Here in this hot land, which was now claiming him as its own, there once was a family and there was love. There was peace. His mind was still capable of seeing an irony here in this primal place.

The recognition of the dip and rise brought a new stirring within him. He made a tentative move, first with his feet, drawing them up to him, bending the knees, feeling the sharp pain deep in his joints. He welcomed the pain because it meant he was still alive. Then he moved his head, his arms, his upper body, all slowly and with great effort.

He willed his body to roll onto its side, then to its knees where he lingered on all fours for an interminable patch of time, his head lolling, fighting to lift itself to the level of his shoulders.

After long agonizing moments Jason made it to his feet, staggered, and fell again to his knees, silently cursed, and, in some tortured sanctum of resolve, willed himself to stand once more. With a strained battle cry, he raised himself. This time he did not stagger so much, but his legs were wobbly as he stepped off toward the distant rise. He lurched but kept his feet, a new found determination dominating his brain.

He willed the flashing images to return … Jenny, Grandma Myrena, Carlton. With each painful step their images sustained him, pushed him onward through the intense, throbbing ache of muscle and joint. They were the faces of those he loved.

The awful thirst was there, always there, a heavy magnetic shroud pulling at every cell in Jason's body. He fought it and prayed that he would soon find water.

Jason stopped, breathed deeply and raggedly, his throat and chest wracking him with painful spasms. He moved on with his new resolve, felt like a runner who must get through an invisible wall after miles of running.

Despite his depression of the past days, his aimless wandering in this desert wasteland, his near submission to the demons within him, he now walked with a stumbling stride of certainty that, just beyond that distant rise, there awaited peace and a reaffirmation to life … and water.

Thirst, damnable thirst, unremitting and pitiless!

The sun beat upon his head, and he could feel the stinging heat burning his scalp. He had used his blazer as a draping head cover for a while yesterday and today. Now, his brow wrinkled in trying to remember where he had left the coat. It was okay. He did not need the blazer … Thirst, cursed thirst!

He unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and placed it over his sunburned scalp, tying the sleeves together under his chin to keep it there, his fingers shaking and uncooperative. It was not long before he felt the sun's heat pricks upon his shoulders. It was okay. The rise ahead was losing some of its slope. Soon he would find relief from the persistent, fiery sphere.

Thirst … the devil's love child.

He willed again the flashing images.

The faces were there, saintly, smiling, and beckoning him onward. He seemed possessed of a righteous passion to get on with his life, to fulfill what he hoped would be a noble destiny. He could live now with death and dying --- 'to everything under the sun there is a season.' He could give back something from the bounty of his life, give back to the truly needy and the truly poor. 'Apple Brown Betty' was still real and beautiful in his mind, still alive, still a dream to unfold. He could use it for good --- and, he would.

Thirst … all thought ceasing for thirst.

His vision blurred further and he tried not to think about water. But, how could he not think about water? The thought was paramount, supreme, unstoppable. His thirst nibbled at all other thoughts that tried to come. His body was rejecting his courageous efforts, his new resolve, and his noble thinking, reminding him harshly of the pain and the damage he was doing to it. His body was reminding him that, here, in this domain, he was at the mercy of some greater power than his mind.

His walking had become mere forward shuffling of feet.

Doubts returned.

Resolve weakened, that once vague promise of hope was hopelessly fading into the haze of blinding sun. When had that been? That hope?

The terrible twist of fate lay heavily on his mind. Perhaps the blurry rise ahead of him was not part of a remembered joy. Perhaps it was just an ugly trick of fate, a maze thing to confuse, tantalize, and destroy.

“Oh, God!” he wailed, through the sore, pulsing, hard baked lips, “let me go on!”

He sank to his knees.

He struggled again to his feet, defiant.

He sank again to his knees.

His throat was a blistery, raw, and ragged passage. His chest was afire with a fiercely pumping heart. He was becoming numb again with the heat and the pain, his body a thing separate and strangely static.

Water! “Oh, God! Give me water!” He cried.

He fought within his confused mind the opposing wills: to go on or to succumb to his sinking spirit. Was it all over? Finally, over?

Then, there came another unbidden, lucid moment from memory. It seemed now that his life was a short journey from womb to tomb. He could flash back through the pages of his life, and it was all so brief: the childhood joy and pain; the adult dreams, passion, love … Was this the final 'life flashing' event before death made its claim?

He hovered there in the gravel and sand, swaying on deadened knees, looking off with squinting eyes toward the slight rise ahead. A vague shape appeared on the horizon, a Rorschach blot, flickering on the afternoon thermal. A sound, like a voice calling, came faint and imprecise. Another Rorschach blot appeared somewhere near the first, then, another. Three ink blots wavering on a line separating the earth and the sky.

There on his knees, he swayed and watched in mute fascination the stampede of Rorschach blots, getting bigger, coming toward him. Were hell's agents rising to greet him? Were they golden chariots altered by the sun?

Voices, now distinct, were cutting through the desert haze, calling to him, yelling his name, “Jason! Jason!”

He swayed and stared at the dark looming forms, comprehension slowly returning to a feverish brain.

The voices became louder. The ink blots became running bodies, still smudged and blurred, coming nearer. They were near enough now for him to see a glowing smile on the face of an angel, nearer still until he saw the tears falling and heard the sobs.

The angel arrived before the other bodies.

The angel fell to her knees in front of him, gently touching, carefully and tenderly cradling his burned and crusty face in her loving hands. The angel sobbed and spoke to him of love.

A great visceral wave passed through Jason Prince, and he cried unashamedly with great heaving sobs, tears that miraculously appeared from some distant and parched part of his soul.

Through his bruised and cracked lips Jason mumbled something to the angel. He felt Jenny's body, soft and yielding, tenderly tentative, settling into his own. Then, he gave himself up to her softness and to the compelling folds of darkness.