Chapter 8

I think that if I had not run into Jimmy, I might have ended it. I was convinced that I owed a life for a life and the more I thought about it, the more right it felt in my head. If I hadn’t stumbled onto the attack when I did, I think I might have done it.

Instead, during a late-night walk to clear my head, I heard the sounds of a scuffle, the meaty thuds of fists striking flesh and the cries of pain that followed. The voice that cried out was that of someone young.

I turned down an alley, moving towards the sounds and I saw a horrifying sight. Three men, all of them dressed like the local thugs in pants that were drooping like they were too big, wife-beater t-shirts and colored bandannas, were systematically kicking a young boy. I could see blood droplets glow briefly as they arced through the harsh beams of the headlights on a chromed-out sedan.

When I yelled at them, I think I was a surprised as they were.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” My voice seemed to come from a hundred men at once, from a hundred places and echoed off the walls of the alley. The sound was focused and I swear I saw pieces of paper picked up and swirled along in its wake as it rocked the three standing men.

One of them turned, a handgun pointing right at me, but his eyes were so wide I could see white around the entire pupil.

“Holy fuck! That motherfucker glowing!” One of the others screamed and immediately took off running. The other two were not far behind, the one with the gun even dropping the pistol. He was three steps away and accelerating before the gun hit the pavement.

When I got to the boy, he was barely conscious. He was bleeding from a dozen cuts. He had at least one broken arm, hanging oddly and his jaw was off-center like they had broken the hinge or something! His nose was broken, his eyes quickly swelling closed and ... and I couldn’t look any more.

Instead, I closed my eyes and had a knock-down, drag out fist fight with my inner demons. That is about the only way I could describe it! I couldn’t leave this child here, hurting, bleeding, maybe dying. But I couldn’t heal him either, I would be condemning another child to death.

He wasn’t old enough, wise enough to hide what he will be able to do. He will tell someone, do something to give himself away and then he will end up like Arash, a victim of his desires to help.

When the bleeding boy at my feet began coughing up blood, I did what I had to do.

Healing this poor boy was shockingly easy. His bones knit seamlessly, his cuts closed from the inside out and disappeared without even the small scars I was used to seeing. The tear in his liver was a mere afterthought as I joined a tear in his large intestine and cleaned out the mess that had leaked. The three ribs barely even needed thinking about which is good because most of my attention was on the small bleed in his brain.

Once I was done, I picked him up and carried him with me. On a concrete bus stop bench, under the actinic light of a streetlamp, I sat and cried again for Rebekah, for Arash and for this child too.

I am not sure how long we sat there, but the sky was just beginning to think about lightening up when he stirred in my arms. Carefully, I sat him up on the bench beside me, leaning on me, and waited for him to wake.

“Wha ... where ... AH!”

Well, not quite the greeting that I had expected, but I guess, from him point of view, it was a reasonable one. He woke up, in torn and bloody clothes, sitting on a bench with a white guy that looked like a ghost.

I just put my hands up when he bolted off the bench and nearly fell on his face. His stomach gave out a growl that would have made the California Grizzly proud, but he was staring at me.

“You him!” He said, raising on hand and pointing at me.

“You dat guy, the Freeway Angel that everyone looking for.”

I shrugged. What was I going to say?

He looked down at himself, his brow knit together, and I could see him remembering. His eyes went wide and he flinched, wincing in memory of the blows, then he looked at me. “Leave him alone. That was you, wasn’t it?”

I nodded and he seemed to shrink a bit. “You should let them niggas kill me. I ain’t got no money, ain’t gon’ deal no drugs and I ain’t gon’ be no bitch ass nigga for faggoty white folks what come down here for cheap thrills.”

The pain and anger in his voice were almost palpable. He was like I was last night, at the end of his rope.

“Where is your family?” I asked neutrally. He didn’t want pity from me.

“My sister was a crack whore, got knifed a couple of years ago. Don’t remember her much. My brother running with the Crips, got shot in a drive by. Momma got the breast cancer and I ain’t never knew who my father was. Just me now.”

“What’s your name?” I asked. I had an idea. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I had to try.

“Darrell. In school I was Lil D ‘cause there was another Darrell who was on the basketball team named Big D.”

“Well, Darrell, you want to come with me then? You need to get off the damn streets and I need someone who is street smart to watch my back. Everyone and their mother are looking for me and I don’t want to be found. How about it? Sleep in real nice beds, by yourself, I see that look you are giving me and I don’t go that way. You get good meals, some new clothes, spending money. What do you think?”

He looked at me suspiciously, and I didn’t even resent it, he had good reason to be worried considering his life up to this point! When he shook his head, I knew he wasn’t going to go for it.

“Okay, your choice, but here’s the thing, Lil D. You see that poor girl get torn apart by the crowd, over at the hospital?” When he nodded, his eyes wide, I hit him with it.

“You are going to be just like her. Oh, maybe not as powerful in the healing, but you will be able to heal people. Fix cuts, heal broken bones, you will have that power in a couple of days. It is something that happens when I heal someone, and you needed quite a bit of healing. You need to listen closely now, okay?”

He nodded, obviously frightened.

“Don’t go around telling everyone! Help people but be smart about it. If a guy has a cut, heal the inside and leave the little bit on top alone so it looks bad, but isn’t, you see? Heal the stuff inside, like an ulcer in the stomach, stuff that can’t be seen. Oh, and Lil D, don’t try and make money on it. You try and sell your healings, don’t be surprised if that gunshot you are trying to heal becomes YOUR gunshot, you understand? This is a blessing, and it is intended for good deeds.”

“You glowing!”

I looked down at my hands and son-of-a-bitch, I really was glowing! A faint white halo, like an aura, was surrounding my whole body. When I held up a hand and pointed at Darrell, a thin thread of light connected us.

“Go, Darrell, and be a good man.” That thing from the night before happened, but on a much smaller scale. A sense of weight accompanied those words, as if what I said was more important that I knew.

Darrell, Lil D, looked as shocked as I felt, but I watched with amazement as he squared his thin shoulders and raised his chin.

“What’s yo name, Freeway Angel?” he asked, almost daring me to tell him.

“Luke. Just call me Luke.”

I went back to the hotel, gathered my gear and ... I just left. The only thing I left behind was my phone. It had been powered down for days and I had smashed it before I threw it in the room’s garbage can.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to have to explain something I had no explanation for. I didn’t want people having to lie for me if they were asked.

I left Los Angeles behind, heading north. From LAX, it was easy to catch a shuttle to Whiteman as if I had a connecting flight out of there. At Whiteman, I got a bus into Santa Clarita and then it was out on the freeway, sticking my thumb up on the 5 and catching a ride with a dude.

I say dude because it seemed like every other word out of his mouth was ‘dude!” Of course, it wasn’t all ‘dude’. It was ‘duder’ and ‘dudemeister’ and ‘dudarino’ and even once, when we passed a convertible with four young women in it, ‘dudettes’.

We were barely outside of town when he turned west onto 126 and headed for the coast. We met up with the 101 between Oxnard and Ventura and headed north again. I was surprised when he lit up a joint there in the car. He explained that he got ‘killer headaches, dude.’ But that the pills the doctors gave him made him nauseous. Smoking pot made the pain bearable and he could still eat.

I had assumed, and kicked myself for doing so, that he was the reason the stereotype of a California pothead existed. Even with the limited vocabulary and odiferous weed he kept offering me, he was a nice guy and before he dropped me off in Santa Barbara, I had disposed of the small tumor in his brain. I felt a bit bad about prejudging him though, and gave him an extra boost downstairs, if you know what I mean.

I was a little surprised that I could do that, but I suppose if I can regrow an amputated arm, adding an inch to someone’s Johnson isn’t all that impressive.

As I strolled into town, I had to laugh when I pictured the Bishop of Los Angeles’s expression if he ever learned what I had done just then. Not quite what one thinks of when one pictures angels, now is it, your eminence? Ha!

I made my way slowly up the coast. I think it was fortunate that I was in California or, at least on the California coast since inland seemed very different. The folks here were very tolerant of people that were ... different. I wandered into tiny towns all the way up the coast and very few people were outright hostile.

The other thing that made California a fortunate choice, was that very few people that I helped seemed anxious to tell anyone about it. They had all seen the debacle in Los Angeles. The few times I openly healed someone, they were very grateful, but swore oaths to keep it quiet and, if they gained the gift, to use it wisely.

Because of that combination, the news that I was travelling didn’t break until I had been north of Los Angeles for more than two weeks. In fact, I was in a little town called Cambria, a bit of an artist colony turned hipster tourist mecca. I was sitting in a little sidewalk café sipping a chai (laugh, it was surprisingly pretty good!) and there was a television on in the window. It had been tuned to some vegan holistic yoga enema infomercial or something equally ridiculous when the station broke in with something urgent.

Yeah, whoopee.

“Freeway Angel, after healing thousands across the city, flees northward to escape persecution from the Federal Government!”

Hmm ... twelve dollars for a cup of tea was highway robbery, but I wouldn’t call it persecution.

“Sightings of the Angel in Las Vegas and Denver have been discounted, but a young man in Santa Barbara was seen several times at a local hospital and, after each sighting, cancer patients were miraculously on their way to recovery!”

The entire café was abuzz with talk about where he was, where he was going, what he was doing and, most importantly, what it all meant.

I wish I knew.

Seattle was a bust. I had this mistaken impression that it would be like San Francisco, but it was as if they had all of the self-righteousness of my little town back in Tennessee, but changed what they were smug assholes about. Instead of religion, it was their political superiority and liberal-ness, if that is even a word. It was like they were damn well determined to be more liberal than anyone else in the entire world.

They hated Berkeley with a passion.

I swear, if one more person asks me for my preferred pronoun before they even let me order my big mac and fries, I will curse them. I will make their hair fall out and their vision fail, give them bunions on their feet, boils behind their knees and bleeding hemorrhoids that always stay just this side of serious.

No, I won’t, but it is fun to think about sometimes and silent contemplation of the results of a revenge curse is preferable to a screaming fit in the line at McDonalds.

I headed east now. It was September, somehow, and it was getting awfully cold this far north.

I had taken to using the name Norwood Fell ever since the FBI put my picture and my real name out on national television. Let me tell you, there is something magical about white hair. In the mirror, I was still that guy they showed, the sixteen year old kid excited about being able to drive, even if my old man was a jackass and wouldn’t lend me the truck if it wasn’t farm related.

When other people saw me, saw the wild white head of hair, now down to my shoulders, and the bushy white beard touching my chest, they don’t see behind the hair. You know, now that I think of it, I think the bushy white eyebrows really help sell it.

I curved south throughout September and by November first, I found myself standing at the Canoncito Visitor’s center outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am not sure why I was here, really, just that I felt a need to check on things, to connect again with people who knew me. I think I just wanted a friendly face.

“Excuse me, sir, but can I have a minute of your time?”

I turned and found myself looking up, and up again, into the professional mask worn by Toh Yah Hidalgo, Canoncito PD. He was still just as big as I remember and still as wide. He was dressed the same too, in jeans and a plain shirt, but his badge shined from his belt and was hard to miss.

“Officer Hidalgo, how can I help you?”

Hidalgo stiffened, one hand creeping closer to his weapon and his eyes narrowing. Then, and I swear you could have knocked him over with a feather for one instant, I saw the recognition appear in his eyes. Then his eyes went hard and they swept the little gift shop, examining everyone and everything.

When there appeared to be no threat, he gestured towards the coffee shop/snack bar with his thumb. We got a drink and sat down at a table near the wall. He sat with his back to the wall, something I had noticed other policemen do.

“You waltz in here like you are not number one on the FBI most-wanted? Are you insane? If you were not a holy man, I would be tempted to turn you over to them, or maybe the psych ward at Presbyterian.” Officer Hidalgo didn’t seem pleased to see me, it appeared.

“I wanted to see Sam and Mary, to check up on little Ajei, plus Alice, Kathy and Walks in Darkness. Did they ever give him a new name? Champ is nice, but kind of impersonal,” I said, picturing the smiling little kid.

Hidalgo grunted and shook his head, but a smile tugged a bit at the corner of his mouth. “They tried, he threatened to run away and tattle on them ... to you.”

I had to laugh at that. The poor boy couldn’t walk with his eyes open when I left and he was going to track me down for that.

“So, am I welcome here, Toh Yah Hidalgo?” I asked, feeling like I needed to.

“You will always be welcome here, Hatalii. You are as much a member of this tribe as I am. More even, since you were formally adopted by all the tribes. We just couldn’t find you to tell you so,” He said with a grin, then sat forward, all business again.

“You will be safe here for a while. Even the FBI will not come onto the Rez without justification and a rogue healer is not a reason to bring armed troops onto our land. We have the right to repel them with force.”

“Please, don’t let it come to that. If word gets out, I will simply leave again. Whether I sneak out or surrender to the authorities, not one person needs to die over me. Not one, you understand?”

He looked shocked, then embarrassed a bit, but he nodded. “As you say, Hatalii. Come, I will take you up to the center.”

I got a welcome like, well, I don’t know what it was like. I can tell you that it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Sam was practically dancing, and Mary gave me two kisses, one on each cheek. Ajei damn near ruptured my eardrum when I tried to sneak into her class at the school. She spotted me right off and teleported from her desk across the room to my arms.

Kathy, Alice and Walks in Darkness were all in different grades and classes, but I would take Ajei with me, with the blessings of her grandparents and the teacher.

“Of course, Hatalii! Will you say hello to the other children?” she asked diffidently, but in her eyes I could see that she really wanted me to check them over. She was a teacher that deeply cared about her charges.

I sat down on the floor, with Ajei in my lap, and I said hello and talked to each of the kids in her class. I would take their hand, get their name while I scanned her or him, and just chat a little. More than one wanted to feel my beard and one boy asked if I was Santa! I must have laughed a little too loud at that one.

The next thing I knew, the entire school, all grades from kindergarten to eighth grade, were either in the room or crowding the hallway.

I held up a hand to try and get some temporary quiet, but it was useless. I was about to give up and try to extract myself when a piercing whistle cut right through the scrum and brought the noise to a startled halt.

Standing there, two fingers from each hand in her mouth, was little Alice, my first cancer patient.

I laughed and ruffled her hair, getting a fantastic smile in return.

“Is there a gym or lunchroom or some other place that will hold us all?” I asked the teacher. In a surprisingly short period of time, I was sitting on a makeshift stage in front of the entire student body and, I was willing to bet, about every adult on the reservation who could get here in time. In fact, as I was about to begin, several more slipped in through the rear doors.

“Hello, everyone,” I said, projecting a bit so the folks in the back could hear me.

“Hello, Hatalii!” The thunderous roar that came back at me was as invigorating as it was startling.

“Well, that was a fantastic welcome. I am not sure what your teachers had planned, I just wanted a bigger room so I could meet everyone without someone getting crushed!”

The principal, a thick-waisted woman of indeterminate age, but with silver streaks in her long black hair, stepped forward and stood by me. She had the little round glasses that seemed to perch on her cheeks and hover above the bridge of her nose. They gave her a whimsical look, as if she is just waiting for some reason to smile.

“Hatalii, there have been so many questions from the students ever since the miracles in Los Angeles. They ask us but as much as we like to pretend to be learned and wise, we don’t know any more about it that they do. I do admit, we are just as curious. Would you let the students ask questions?”

I just nodded. So many excited faces watched expectantly that I couldn’t do anything else.

“I am not much of a public speaker so, unless anyone objects, I will wander around during this?” I asked, turning to see if anyone was going to object but finding only smiles.

I turned back and paced over to the bleachers. I think every student there had their hand up, except for Ajei. With a grin, I picked the boy she was sitting with. The blush on her cheeks told me I was right, she was sweet on him!

“Hatalii, you healed Ajei, right? You rescued her from the kidnappers? She says that you made her a hatalii too,” the boy said, blushing at Ajei’s glare, but not backing down.

“Well, yes and no. I didn’t rescue Ajei from the kidnappers, she rescued herself. When I came on the wreck of their vehicle, Ajei, battered and hurt very bad, crawled over two hundred meters, across rocks and cactus and scorching sand, before finally collapsing. She rescued herself from the kidnappers. Me? I did something braver!”

I struck a pose like a comic book superhero.

“I saved her from ... the sun!” There was a burst of laughter as the kids all got caught up in the story. “I came along and she was laying in a ditch, fighting the sun to stay alive and, well, how could I not help such a brave girl? I healed her wounds and gave her water and a place to sit where the sun had no power.”

“Heaven?” A voice called out into the silence, but I laughed and shook my head.

“I had a truck with air conditioning, but I bet she sure thought was heaven after hours in that sun!” That brought more laughter and things seem to loosen up a bit.

I fielded questions about how I do what I do, how those healed also get some of the power to heal. I talked about what happened in Los Angeles and I cried as I told them about the poor girl. They cried with me.

I told them about how I almost gave in to despair, but how a brave young boy, himself alone and a victim in a cold, harsh world, was unwilling to go down without a fight. If he could fight, then by golly, I could fight too.

I got a cheer after that, and called it quits.

I spent another couple of hours just chatting with people, making sure to meet the parents and teachers of the students.

At the end of the event, I was standing there, surrounded by people but chatting with Sam, Mary and the principal, whose name was Gail. I hadn’t even noticed the young woman by my elbow until Mary nudged me and pointed with her chin.

She was close to my age, though she looked eons younger next to my long white beard and hair. She seemed very serious and was practically bouncing on her toes while she waited for me to notice her.

“Hatalii, I am Doli Stratton, and I am the Tribal Council librarian. I mostly work on archiving and maintaining our history and that of the Navajo in general. I also run the Reservation Lending Library, but that doesn’t take much time. The reason I am here now is that I am the Chapter President of the Freeway Angel Support Network. Our Chapter covers all of New Mexico,” she said proudly, squaring her shoulders and watching my reaction.

Freeway Angel Support Network. Okay, then.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Stratton?”

“Doli, please, Hatalii. We have so many questions and we need guidance.”

“Okay look, if I am going to call you Doli, you have to call me Luke. Deal?”

She looked at Sam, then at Mary and finally Gail before coming back to me, a shocked expression on her face. She nodded once, a short, sharp gesture. Hm.

“What kind of questions do you have?” I asked, wanting to move this along. I was already feeling a bit hemmed in here.

“Well, we have been gathering information on the converted and those who wish to be converted. They have been going out and doing your work, carefully and secretly, of course, but this all has to be leading to something, right? Some big event? Will you be announcing your goals in secret or to the world? Will you gather the faithful?”

I was stunned. I felt the bile rising in my throat and it was only with the greatest of effort I was able to keep myself from being sick right there on the gymnasium floor.

No. NO! This was not happening.

“Can you take a memo from me to be distributed to every one of the people involved with this support network?” I asked, trying to stay calm.

She nodded, her eyes wide. She knew something was wrong, but not what.

“Okay, then write this down. No. A thousand times, no. There are no converted, no faithful because there is no religion here. I am not here as an avatar of some god or goddess, I am a man, like any other, only I have a special ability. I don’t worship any gods, and I certainly...” I paused, knowing somehow that if I started bad talking the gods that others worshipped, it would just make things worse.

“I certainly am not starting a religion or a religious movement. No cult, no clubs, nothing. Yes, I can heal people. Yes, I give those I heal some of the same abilities, I show them how to dip into the power within each and every one of us, and use that power to heal. All they are doing is showing the body how to return to where it was. It knows how it should be, but needs a push. They use their own energy, sharing with others, to boost that healing.”

“But the miracles! How do you explain them if not for...” she asked, trailing off and blushing. She was asking me to explain the white man’s gods when she was standing in front of the tribe’s medicine man, the shaman.

“I don’t. I have no more idea what happened in Los Angeles than you do, other than to say that I was angry. I was sad and I was feeling overwhelmed and I was devastated, not having gotten over the death of my sister. I think of that event as a temper tantrum.”

Sam started coughing, which looked suspiciously like he was trying to cover up a laugh.

“What about the other miracles?” Doli pressed, not yet willing to give up.

“What other miracles? I have not performed any other miracles!” I said, exasperated at this point.

“You didn’t hold up that collapsing bridge in Morro Bay, California until the last car was across?” She asked, her expression telling me she was sure she had me.

“I have never been to Morro Bay.”

“And Cloverdale? The water contamination?” Doli asked, this time flinching in expectation.

I had to pause there. I had stopped in Cloverdale and had taken a drink at a fountain. It had tasted ... odd. I found out later that they were telling everyone to drink bottled water, that the local water supply had been contaminated by a pesticide spill. I hadn’t stayed in Cloverdale more than two hours though, and I never went near a reservoir or wherever it is that they got their water.

I told Doli this and she got a faraway look on her face.

“We could test it,” she said, almost daring me.

Okay, so I was interested too. Was this something I could do?

Sam, Mary, Doli and I had managed to sneak out of the school, with Champ somehow attached to the end of my arm, and we all went over to the clinic.

Doli was all excited and pulled in Martha Little Deer, Ajei’s grandmother, who agreed to help.

She disappeared for several minutes and returned with three glasses of water in three clear tumblers. They were all filled to the same level and all sat on a tray in front of me.

“First, without touching, tasting, smelling or otherwise interacting with the glasses, chose the one you would want to drink.” Doli said, clearly in her element here.

I shrugged and pretended I was a stage magician, waving my hands above the glasses and muttering nonsense in a singsong voice. Doli looked appropriately impressed until Sam ruined it by laughing. She got it then and glared at me.

That was preferable to her looking at me like the golden goose.

No idea why, I settled on the middle one and pointed it out. Doli jotting something down on her clipboard and walked out with the tray. She was back seconds later with what could have been the same tray or it was another, identical tray, I couldn’t tell.

This time, she allowed me to touch the glass itself, but not the liquid. I reached out and ran my index finger along all three glasses and chose the one on the left.

She left and came back, the third test was sniffing the water and choosing. One smelled strongly of chemicals, the other only slightly while the third had no smell.

The final test was to have me sip from each. There was a heated, though whispered, conversation in the other room over this test. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it was said with great conviction.

Doli came back in with the tray. This time I actively tried to use my gift. I stuck a finger in each glass and tried to sense it. Honestly, I got nothing. It wasn’t until I tried to drink from each of them that things got weird.

The first glass I picked up smelled of chemicals when it got close enough for my nose to pick out the odor. Reasoning that she wouldn’t really try to kill me and my ability should allow me to heal myself, add in Sam’s presence and his own healing ability, I settled myself and took a sip.

There were several gasps but couldn’t tell why. When I raised an eyebrow, Doli shook her head and waved to the other glasses.

The second glass was an almost exact duplicate reaction from the folks in the room, but the third glass, there was no reaction.

“Okay, so what happened, Ms. Scientist.

Doli sat down hard, threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know. I just have no idea. You say it isn’t religious, but it is sure as hell something!”

“What happened? You can tell me, I was here for it,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“The glass lit up for a second, and so did you, glowing a soft white,” Sam said, reaching for and sniffing, then sipping at the glass I had tasted first.

“That’s clean water. The second glass was the same, just not as bright.” He said, picking up and sipping from the second glass.

“This is clean too.”

“Okay, so you pulled a fast one, some super-secret double-blind fake to catch me out?”

Doli shook her head and Martha was shaking hers as well.

“Doli put the insecticide in the water. Too much, I thought, but she was sure that you could heal yourself if needed, or Sam could. The second glass was just another poisoned one from before. We dumped the water out, filled it again but didn’t clean the glass.”