Rider on Fire. Sharon Sala

power of the Harley carried Sonora swiftly down the highway. She rode with the confidence of a seasoned biker. Just before the last of the light faded away, Sonora signaled to change lanes, then glanced in the rearview mirror. The last thing she expected to see was the outline of a horse and rider up in the sky, following at her back.

      Startled by the sight, the bike swerved slightly. She quickly regained control and then ventured another glance. This time, she saw nothing but a scattering of clouds.

      Rattled, she curled her fingers tighter around the handlebars and focused on the road ahead.

      It was nothing but clouds in an odd formation—no way had she seen a ghost rider.

      No way, indeed.

      Miguel Garcia was ticked off. He’d beaten Buddy Allen senseless and still wasn’t any better off than he’d been when he’d walked into the apartment. Either the man didn’t know, or he’d rather die than tell where Sonora Jordan had gone. All he’d gotten from his visit to Allen’s apartment was a photo of Sonora. He’d seen her driver’s license photo, but it did not hold a candle to the one Buddy had in a frame. Miguel stared at the image, eyeing the copper-colored skin and straight black hair. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped, her lips full with a twist that could be read as sensual or sarcastic.

      Miguel had to admit that Sonora Jordan was beautiful. But beautiful or not, she’d killed Juanito and helped put Enrique in prison and for that she would pay.

      Before he’d left the neighborhood, he’d done a little investigating, spread a little money around, and learned that Buddy Allen used to have a Harley parked near his pickup truck, but that he’d ridden away on it about five days ago and come back in a cab. After that, he’d drawn a blank.

      Once he got back to his hotel room, Miguel made a call to Jorge Diaz to see if he had any contacts in Phoenix who could hack into computer systems. Jorge had given him a name. Toke Hopper. It turned out to be a good one.

      At Miguel’s instructions, Toke hacked into the Arizona DMV and discovered that the missing Harley actually belonged to Sonora Jordan, not Robert Allen.

      Since Miguel had already been to her apartment and seen the amount of accumulating mail dropped through the slot in her door, he was guessing that she’d already been gone for a few days. He’d been puzzled by the fact that her car was still in its parking place, and assumed she’d taken a plane or a bus out of Phoenix.

      Just to make sure his guess had been right, he had Toke check the passenger lists of airlines and buses for the past week. To his surprise, Sonora Jordan had not used either to leave the city. The only thing missing besides Sonora, herself, was the Harley. If she left town on it, he had no way of knowing a destination.

      He decided to go back to her apartment and look again. Maybe he’d missed something before that would make sense to him now.

      He paid off the hacker and drove back to Sonora’s apartment building, then walked in like he owned the place. It was a quarter to eleven in the morning and most of the residents were at work. No one challenged him as he rode the elevator up to her floor and picked the lock on her door as he’d done before.

      Once inside, he began going through papers, looking for something—anything—that would give him a clue as to where she’d gone. Thirty minutes later he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he came in, and was ready to give up. He was on his way out of the kitchen when he accidentally dropped his car keys. As he was picking them up, he noticed something on the floor underneath the island. He got down on his hands and knees and pulled it out.

      It was nothing but a book. He had a difficult time speaking English and couldn’t read it at all, so he was definitely disappointed. He didn’t get interested until he realized the book wasn’t just a book, it was an atlas—a book of maps.

      He was looking for a woman who’d obviously gone on a trip, so he started at the beginning and began turning pages one by one. About six pages in, he came to the page showing the map of the United States and found his first clue.

      Someone had taken a highlighter and traced a path north out of Phoenix and into Oklahoma. The yellow line ended near a small town on the interstate called Henryetta.

      He didn’t know how old the atlas was, or if the yellow line was from a previous trip, but it was simple enough to check out. Within minutes he was gone.

      He made Flagstaff around four o’clock and immediately began flashing her picture around at gas stations and eating establishments. It took a couple of hours before he hit pay-dirt.

      He found an employee at a gas station who remembered a pretty woman wearing black leather and riding a Harley. When Miguel showed him Sonora’s picture, he confirmed it was her that he’d seen.

      Miguel was congratulating himself on his detective work and thought about driving on through the night, but when he saw the gathering thunderstorms, he changed his mind. He got a room for the night and settled in, satisfied that he was on the right track.

      Sonora was still rattled by her latest hallucination as she rode through Amarillo, Texas, but kept going.

      She never knew when she crossed the Oklahoma border, but when the sun finally came up, she saw a sign on the side of the road indicating Clinton and Weatherford were only a few miles ahead. She’d never heard of Clinton, but for some reason, she knew Weatherford was in Oklahoma.

      Just knowing that she was in the state fueled a sense of urgency she didn’t understand, but she was too weary to go any farther until she’d gotten some food and some sleep.

      Adam Two Eagles had watched the sun rise, then fed his cat before making himself sit down and write checks to pay his bills. Some time today he was going to have to go into town and get groceries, but not for a while. The day was too nice to waste and he’d promised some families he’d go visit and make medicine for them.

      And so the day passed as Adam made visits and answered a couple of phone calls for help from his cell phone. He worked without thought of what waited for him back home until it was getting late and he had yet to go to town and get his groceries. In a few hours it would be dark. He thought about waiting until tomorrow to go shopping and started to go inside his house, when suddenly, the front door swung shut in front of him.

      Startled, he stopped, opened it, then stood on the threshold and waited, expecting to feel a draft from an open window somewhere in the house.

      He felt nothing.

      The skin crawled on the back of his neck.

      He turned and looked toward the horizon.

      The sense of imminency was still with him.

      “Okay,” he said softly. “I will go to town.”