Background
While munching on a trove of stale crumbs from Liz's backpack, both Liz & Linda see a speck moving toward them in the fog. We discover the origin of the water bottles they had in the cave in Ch 10.
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"Let's look in my backpack." Liz suggested. "I haven't seriously investigated the insides of that purple being, since I stopped working."
"That was six months ago. Wasn't it?" Linda teased.
"Yuh, I guess it was that long ago." Liz flipped the lock lever so Linda could open the back door.
Linda stood leaning in toward the backpack, unzipped it and bravely felt around inside.
" The package says, a granola bar. Actually, a bag, probably stale, of granola. I don't dare look at the expiration date."
Liz was famous for eating things expired. Her friends always asked, "How old is this?" Or "When did you buy this?"
"Another one. Now we can each have one. I was wondering how we could divide the other one up. This one is at least in chunks," valiantly announced Linda.
When she felt a collapsed bag of something, she tenuously examined it. "Just as I suspected. A bag of potato chips. Well, more like probably rancid dust. Probably rancid crummy dust."
Meanwhile, Liz opened the other rear door, courageously lifting the bag of recycled pellet bags, cautiously scrounging for any possible consumable salvage in the broad back area.
Linda's sudden laughter caused Liz to yank her nose out of the bags to see what the dear scavenger had uncovered.
"Water. Bottles and bottles of it. There's a whole plastic bag of bottled water."
Liz was confused. "What? I never put any water in my car? You musta put it in there at some point." Neither of them could remember the circumstances around this curious find.
"Wait, I vaguely remember you putting it in there to bring to Gina's. We were going over there, for me to see your niece's new home renovation."
Nothing was finalized, which was not unusual for those two. "Well we can be grateful for however it got here. Let's just crack one open to share."
"Right, we gotta stay hydrated; especially you. There's no hospital around here." Linda remembered being at work one night and having to take a seriously dehydrated Liz to the hospital.
"Yum, wonderful water. Oh, happy fault that you forgot to give this water to anyone."
"It feels so good going down my burning throat."
"Doesn't it? It even tickles a little bit," gurgled Liz. "I feel a little calmer now. Hope I didn't scare you with my tantrum," Liz apologized.
Liz lowered the well-used visor in front of her, to shield some of the excruciating interminable glare from the vast grayness.
"Oh, good idea," Linda flipped hers down and sighed.
"Every direction we look in, makes my eyes feel like needles are being driven into my poor eye sockets." Liz put her head back. "It's so blaringly gray."
Calmer than Liz, Linda suggested, "Let's try to relax with our little bit of granola," laughing, "and powdered potato chips."
As they munched, Liz noticed the black highway. "Even the pavement has faded into the same dull gray as everything around us. It's creating illusions and mirages."
Linda agreed, "I feel like I'm hallucinating. I just saw an orange horse coming our way."
"Hm?" Pausing, Liz chuckled, "I saw a giant green bird."
"Black puddles of water," Linda added.
"Specters ghosting up into the wavy opaqueness," Liz exchanged.
"A speck on the horizon that looks like it's coming toward us," Linda's voice had grown more serious.
Liz was still playing. "Distorted buildings, stretching so they look like giant skyscrapers." A long pause. "Wait a minute."
At first, Liz thought it was a floater in her left eye. When she realized they were seeing the same thing, she blurted, "I see it too."
They faced each other wide-eyed, startled with wonder at how the other could possibly be having an identical vision.
"No way to know how far away they are. But I do think they are coming our way. Whatever it is."
"Hopefully, it's a person." Liz's discouragement was showing. "Not that they could do anything to help us."
Linda's enthusiasm dropped a level. "True, unless it's a car or wrecker truck."
"What can we do to while away our time? It's going to be at least an hour before our mystery is solved."
"Yuh, we've got to do something to distract ourselves from the boredom. And you know we hate to wait."
Teasing Linda, "Are you saying I'm boring?"
Linda wasn't one bit embarrassed. They had that kind of relationship. "You know neither of us finds each other boring." They both laughed.
"Let's just read." Liz chose her compelling Native American historical fiction by the Gears. She'd read at least 27 of their series and never tired of them.
"That'll work." Linda never went anywhere without her Bible and immediately pulled that out.
They both became so engrossed in their reading they did not realize how time on this plain could shift and shrink and persons too distant for the naked eye to espy were transported in an instant.
************
They lifted their heads at the same time to see a stunning woman approaching their Honda. She was adorned in a multi-colored dress with shades of lavender, turquoise, red, black and the gentlest touches of green with porcupine quills sewn onto it in just the right places.
Her simple headpiece consisted of feathers of the accipiter or smaller hawk. Liz recognized them to be mostly Coopers Hawk. Soft dark brownness with white stripes was accented by turquoise peacock feathers.
Around her neck was a rawhide strip with an image of a black crow burned into a wooden pendant with porcupine quills hanging from it.
Her moccasins, also made of rawhide, bore two black crows painted on each, surrounded by a blue dyed porcupine quill sky.
Easing their eyes from the surrealism, they slowly ratcheted their heads toward each other. The two simultaneously whispered, "What do we do now?"
***********
She was getting closer. Linda gritted her teeth and shrugged, "I guess we should invite her to join us."
Liz sheepishly agreed, "I guess so. Her countenance seems ancient and from other angles very young. What she's wearing, the basket, and those moccasins aren't of this generation, nor of the one preceding us. Something feels weird. Not a bad kind of weird, just weird."
"I guess I'll get out and invite her in. We'll see what she says. She may not even want to stop." Linda got out to open the back door.
Fortunately, it was Linda, she's organized. She began clearing things away, apologizing, explaining and pushing aside everything they'd scattered earlier. Then she hefted the base of what was now a station wagon format, to reveal a car seat.
Kneeling on the seat, she quickly arranged everything into a neat pile on the other side of the seat and behind her. As their welcomed guest pulled herself into the car and settled into the backseat, Liz noticed the basket consisted of woven cattails reeds.
This too had a painting of crows circling the top of the basket with bands of red, black and brown and at the bottom of the basket bands were red and black.
Something was in the basket but Liz could not see as it was concealed by a thin mat covering. This strikingly statuesque woman introduced herself. "I am Kai Zita of the Matrilineal Black Crow Tribe of the Black Crow Nation of the Crow Kinship."
Liz and Linda introduced themselves with much less formality. Kai Zita told them, "I walk this road every day seeking out those who have lost their way. I give them direction. We will talk about that too."
Liz was working very hard not to be impolite, but she wanted so much to know what was in the basket.
She'd been watching out the corner of her eye to catch any movement under that mat. She hadn't detected any stirrings so assumed there wasn't an animal under the covering. She was secretly hoping it was food.
Though distracted with hunger, Liz did think there was something about Kai Zita that struck her as very anachronistic. Another word she loved. This mysterious guest did not seem to be in harmony with the 2010 Honda Fit.
Liz wondered if she'd ever been in one.
