Chapter 1: Mentally Yours

Two Weeks Before:

Vickie Storm felt IT again, the fast sliding down from great heights feeling in the middle of her body. The sixteen year old was certain she knew what caused that feeling. "I'm too young!" she exclaimed aloud.

"Of course you're too young, dear." Her mother looked up at her six feet tall daughter and smiled. Then she felt a chill run up and down her back. "Too young for what?" she asked in a concerned voice.

"I just got that slithery feeling. I've heard older women talk about it." To sixteen year old Vickie, any female past her twentieth birthday was an "older woman."

"Daughter, are you certain?" This was serious and Vickie was absolutely correct, she was "too young."

"Oh, I don't know, it's just that all the women in our lineage felt that queasy feeling in their bodies and..." She stopped talking and stiffened up.

"What's happening?" Ellen Storm became more concerned at her daughter's behavior.

"It happened again and I felt a jolt go through my head." She frowned and added, "Mother, I'm frightened."

"We'll talk to your father this evening. Perhaps he'll know something more than we do." In her heart Ellen knew there was no other explanation.

"Mother, I'm too young to mate. I don't want to be hindered in my goals by a life partner. It's not fair and I'm too young to hear the call."

Henry Storm's revelations only made Vickie feel worse. "In my lineage it seems every few generations, one of our young women feels the call early. Usually that person has special qualities that make her stand out from all others of her generation."

"I'm already special," Vickie argued. "I am the most intelligent person I know. I'm more talented that anyone else of my generation and I'm physically superior to even the males in our community."

Henry knew his daughter was not bragging. "Well, this just makes it official. You are one of the Special Ones. I'll have to inform the Council."

"No!" Vickie yelled. "I refuse to let those smelly old men interview me. They are so pretentious in their imagined superiority. I'll leave home first."

That's not an option for you," Henry told his daughter. The Guard will track you down and bring you back. Specials belong to the Council."

"Then I'll either die or ruin the Council," Vickie threatened.

"Dear," Ellen told her daughter, "Let's set this aside for now. Why don't we attend the Nevada Junior Chess

Championship? You can compete with others your own age while your father keeps his appointment with the doctors at the VA Hospital in St Cloud."

Vickie nodded her agreement. "Just remember, I will get mean if those old men interfere with my life."

Henry sighed. He hated the fact that the doctors held out no hope for him. He was sorry he wouldn't be alive to help his daughter survive the problems she would soon face. Life was so unfair.

Two Weeks After That:

It was June the eighth, the last day of school. Brianory Connor laughed as he watched the disturbance in the hallway from a safe distance. Ingrid Swanson had just caught her boyfriend Billy McPherson in a serious lip lock with Lena Schwartz. Ingrid doubled up her fist and threw a hard punch and connected with Billy's right eye. "You come with me!" she yelled at her never very true love and dragged him away.

Brian shook his head at the way some people acted. He saw Ingrid drag the embarrassed Billy away from the scene of his latest crime. Brian tried to understand why so many of the guys in school went nuts over girls, especially the eleventh and twelfth graders.

"They're all nuts," was his only comment to himself, as he walked to the next class. Most of the morning was spent turning in books, and all the other stuff a ninth grader does before the school year was officially over.

Later that morning Brian heard about how Lester Larsen, the class joker, rode with his bare butt stuck out the rear window of his best bud's car, He decided to cut class and moon the school. The problem for Lester began when his mom saw him. She was not amused.

She was a cook in the school cafeteria and had stepped outside to sneak a smoke. "I'd know that skinny butt anywhere!" she yelled and slapped Lester's naked rear end as hard as she could.

When he heard about it, Brian smiled, shrugged his shoulders and decided some people needed full time keepers. Brian finished his business with the school by noon, then hopped on his old Schwinn Cruiser and pedaled home to disaster.

"Oh man, I'll fish every day and kick back and..." That was as far as he got on his great plans for the summer.

"Oh good, you're home," his mom said, as soon as he came through the back door and into the kitchen. "Go store your bike in the barn. Then make sure you lock everything up tight and come in the house."

"What's the matter?" Brian looked at his Mom in surprise.

"Your dad called earlier this morning. He was able to trade vacation times with another guy at work. And I'm takin' two weeks sick leave. It's all arranged, we're going to Arizona and see that Lost Dutchman Mine and a lot of other stuff. Ain't that great?"

"Mom," Brian in a whiny voice, "What about my fishing and hunting? What about my vacation? Let's just stay right here and..."

"Boy, you can stop that stuff right now. We are going on a vacation together. We will all have fun and you will enjoy yourself. Them's orders."

"Mom, please? Why can't I just stay here and you and dad go? I'll look after the chickens and milk both our goats and even weed your garden. Please?"

"Knock it off right now, young man, or I'll clobber you right into the middle of next year some time." This was an empty threat and Brian well knew it. However he also knew she only talked like that when she was excited.

Then came the clincher, "I already called the Una Swenson and their daughter Inga will milk our two goats with theirs and come over here every day to gather the eggs and feed the chickens."

"Aw jeez, Mom. What will I do out there in the desert? All they got in Arizona is sand and Indians and cactuses. Who ever heard of going fishing in the middle of the desert?"

"Well, maybe you can dig up some sand crabs," she told him and grinned at his pained expression. Brian did not like his mother's sense of humor.

"Aw Mom, come on," Brian had to give it one last try and failed.

"Go put your bike up like I said. And make sure the barn door is locked. If you leave your bike out, you'll just get it stolen like the last one you left out when we went to visit Grandma that time."

Brian sighed a dramatic sigh and muttered under his breath, "Sheesh." He walked back outside and pushed his bike into the barn. When he went back outside, he locked the door tight behind him.

Brian went to his room and dragged his old suitcase out of the closet. He shoved four shorts, four tee shirts and four changes of underwear onto the suitcase. He thought a minute and added his other pair of tennies. The rest of the suitcase was filled up with old games, game discs and four Harry Potter books. He nodded to himself. His packing was done. With the small stackable washer/dryer unit in the motor home, he didn't need much.

Over the supper table that evening, Linda Connor kept up a running monolog that didn't need either Brian's dad or Brian to answer. Charley Connor and Brian exchanged looks and grinned. At least they didn't have to try to answer her rapid fire speech.

"Pass the butter please," Brian said.

"Don't interrupt me," his mom said, handed him the butter and kept up her non-stop chatter about what a great time they would have in Arizona.

"May I be excused?" Brian asked.

"Please don't interrupt me," his mother told him.

"Yah, me too," his dad said in his usual laid back mellow voice. "All this excitement is gettin' to me." He rolled his eyes at Brian and got up from the table.

"Am I the only one that's excited about our vacation?" Linda couldn't understand why no one else was as excited about their vacation as she was.

""This will be just like the honeymoon we never got to take when we got married. Oh I just know this is going to be real fun; you just wait and see."

"Oh babe, you know some of us just don't show our excitement like some of us others do, I guess. I'm plenty excited. Right son?"

"Ugh," was Brian's only response.

Once they were outside on the back porch, Charley tried to explain to his only child, "Son, sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and try to make the best of things. I bet my own excitement is about as much as yours."

"Well, if you don't want to go and I don't want to go, why are we going?" It seemed so unfair.

Charley's soft Scandinavian flavored Minnesota accent somehow calmed the teenager. "Well, it's like all them times when you was little and you crawled up on my lap and begged me to read you a story. You think I liked to read about some train that huffed and puffed up a hill?"

"Well, I guess not." Brian knew pretty much what his dad would say next and he was right.

"Sometimes we do things we don't really want to do because it makes someone else we love happy." He threw his arm around Brian's shoulder and hugged. "Understand?"

"Yeah, I guess. But I'm not going to enjoy myself." Brian imagined what two weeks in a cactus patch was going to be like.

Charley laughed and answered, "You better enjoy yourself. Your mom said you better and so you just better, Them's orders from the boss."

"Not funny, Dad."

"Oh, I thought it was and my vote is the only one that counts. Yah sure, that means it's funny." He laughed at Brian's sour expression.

Early the next morning, they all three climbed into their forty foot long motor home and headed for I-35 onramp going south. Charley drove, Linda kept up a long line of chatter about lost Dutchmen and their mines and cactuses that looked weird and what all else they might see.

Brian sat at the dinette table and played his Game Pad. After a while, he looked out the window at the passing countryside and wished the two weeks of agony were already over.

Now, on top of all his other misery, short, skinny under muscled Brian Connor had begun to feel jolts in his head and felt like he was about to throw up. For sure he knew he wasn't about to tell his mom. She'd just dig out that big medical book and look for what his symptoms meant and then she'd treat him. Some of her cures were worse than the symptoms.

Their first destination was Apache Junction, Arizona. First, there were no Apaches to be seen, or any other Indians, for that matter. Besides, Brian had friends back in Minnesota that were Chippewa Indians and, for the most part, they were pretty cool.

Then second, Brian felt Apache Junction should have been named "Old People's Trailer Parks Junction. It seemed the whole town was nothing but a series of trailer parks and a worn out old shopping area that looked a hundred years old. Not only that, but it was hot, above a hundred degrees hot.

The man at the KOA campgrounds had lost their reservation and they were full up. The only other place willing to rent to them for two weeks looked like it belonged in a movie about hillbillies and rednecks.

"Yuck!" Brian's mom said when she saw the condition of the place.

"Uffda! Brian's dad exclaimed and slapped his forehead when he saw the condition of the place.

"Get us out of here!" Brian exclaimed when they first drove through the gates. "I need to get shots from just looking at that place."

"Let's just cruise up in the Superstition Mountains," Charley suggested. Three days into their vacation and he was ready to go home.

Linda blinked to get the sight of that slum of a trailer park out of her mind and agreed. Now that we've seen the worst, only the best remains. We'll go talk to that lost Dutchman."

"Uh Mom, if he's lost, how can we talk to him?" Sometimes Mom got a little far out and her humor followed.

"Well, we'll just have to find him, dig him up and talk to him.

"Hon, is the sun down here affecting you?" One thing about his wife, Charley decided, when she decided to have fun, she was going to have fun if it killed her and everyone else around. Not only that but she had a real weird sense of humor.

Two days later Linda said, "Babe, let's head up toward Globe. They got old mines up there that are still producing."

Brian opened up his laptop and checked for a wifi connection and found one. He got on the Net and checked the weather. It was eighty degrees and sunny in Globe. "Yeah, let's go!" Anything would be better than the hundred plus degree temperatures where they were now. Then he felt another "Thump!" in his head and a bolt of lightning shot

through his body. He checked to see if his mom had seen him jerk. She hadn't.

A week later, Charley parked just a mile off the state road in a cleared off parking area. "Hon, let's stop here and kick back, then head home tomorrow. I've about had all the fun and excitement I can stand.

Although she wasn't about to admit it, Linda told herself this wasn't such a great idea for a vacation after all. "Okay, Babe, if you say so."

"Oh yes!" Brian whispered to himself.

They parked, Charley got the awning rolled out from the side of the motor home and Brian unfolded the chairs for his folks to sit and relax. Linda brought out the iced tea and bottle of lemon juice.

"All the comforts of home," she said to no one in particular.

The great, black doglike creature stood higher up the hill than the teen he watched wander around. The young man was obviously lost. The dog watched the boy look around in confusion. He appeared to be thirteen or perhaps fourteen years old and he was definitely lost. He moved like someone who had no idea where he was. Then the giant animal sensed a faint hint of the panicky thoughts radiating from the boy.

Could it be? Could this unlikely, scrawny specimen be one of the special few? He dared not hope, and yet ... He crept nearer and listened. Yes!

Brian admitted to himself he was lost. He wasn't completely afraid yet; but he had reached the point where he admitted to himself he was for certain lost and he started to feel more than a little nervous about it. He and his parents had gone to the Superstition Mountains in Arizona for a vacation.

It was late spring and the desert was still green. The early spring rains caused the giant cactuses to become all swollen with the water they had stored inside to help them survive the hot dry summer season when it never rained.

Right then, to the young man, those big barrel cactuses all looked very scary and quite threatening. Who knew what or even who was hiding behind them just waiting to pounce on a person? That was when Brian admitted to himself; well maybe he was a little afraid, not too much, just a little. For Brian, the problem was that when a guy got even slightly lost everything began to look scary. Okay, Brian decided, I'm real lost.

"I thought I came this way," he muttered to himself, "Nothing looks right. It all looks different."

"Perhaps because it is different, foolish boy." The rumbling voice seemed to come from all around him and inside his head at the same time. "Could it be you are on the other side of the hill from where you think you are?"

Brian felt a thrill of fear in his stomach. "Hey, who said that? Come on out and show yourself. I'm not afraid," he yelled.

"Oh yes you are afraid," the voice answered him, "and you know you're afraid and you're afraid to admit you're afraid."

"I am not afraid," Brian said in a scared, quivering voice.

"Well, if you're not afraid, then why are your knees shaking? And your chin is quivering too. That seems pretty afraid to me."

"Well all right then, so I am a little bit scared." He paused a moment, then asked, "How come I seem to hear you in my head? Where are you? Are you scared, too?"

"Well now, since you admit you're scared I'll answer your first question. The reason you hear me inside your head is because where I'm talking to you is inside your head."

"Oh, that's impossible," Brian replied, "People only talk to each other with their minds in comic books and old Star Trek reruns. Why won't you show yourself?"

"Okay, here goes. Just turn around and look behind you. Here I am. Now don't you get all sissy scared on me."

Brian hesitated, and then turned around. All at once his eyes grew round and wide and he yelled, "Hoo boy!" He bent forward and prepared to start running as fast as his strong young legs would let him. In front of him he saw the biggest, blackest dog shaped animal of some kind or other he had ever seen before in his whole life.

"Hey, I thought I told you not to get all sissy scared on me." Somehow, when Brian looked at the big, black, four-footed monster, the voice in his head became clearer. The huge dog stood there with a big, wide grin on his face. This made him seem not quite so fearsome. Awesome, yes, definitely awesome, but not quite fear making. He looked almost friendly.

"Hey. I'm not a sissy." Brian indignantly told the beast, "If some great big ugly, hairy black monster showed up in front of you, you'd be scared too."

"Hey, yourself, puny little pink creature, watch who you're calling ugly. I think I look quite handsome. After all I have all this beautiful black hair all over my body. And what do you have? All you have is a little patch of yellow fuzz on your head and elsewhere."

"Wait a minute," Brian told his new acquaintance, "You still haven't told me how come I hear you in my head. People who hear voices in their heads are nuts."

"As a rule you would be correct with the unkind remarks you made in a thoughtless sort of way. This is the exception to the rule. I am here, you are here and we are 'talking.' Also you are definitely not one of the unfortunates whom you call 'nuts.' Ergo we converse, therefore we are sane." Somehow the big monster dog's face appeared smug and self-satisfied.

"How come you use all those big words, if you're a dog?" Brian asked. "I never heard of a dog who knew big words, before."

"Oh ye of little imagination and less mind. My last companion was a scholar, a gentle man of many interests." Brian sensed, a great sadness in the mental voice as the big dog continued. "He has been dead these many seasons and I have been seeking a new companion, one who could detect my voice ever since. There are so very few of you, you know. Besides, I am quite brilliant in my own right. It's hereditary you know."

"No, I didn't know. Do you mean not everyone can hear you?" Brian hadn't considered that possibility. "Then what will people think if I tell them I talk to a dog who knows big words?"

"Well, one possibility is they will think you're nuts." The dog cocked his head to one side and grinned.

"Oh man, now we're right back where we started. When I tell my folks I met a dog who talks and only I can hear him, they will say I'm nuts for sure," Brian replied.

"There is one solution to your little problem you know."

"What?" Brian asked.

"You don't tell them." The big dog looked at Brian doubtfully, "I know you're such a blabbermouth, you could never keep a secret."

"I can so keep a secret."

"No you can't because you have a big blabbermouth."

"Well, it doesn't matter, anyway," Brian told his new acquaintance. "If you'll tell me which way to go, I'll get back to my folks."

"Do you mean you'll go away and leave me here alone?" There was a hint of alarm in the dog's gruff mental voice.

"Well, you can't expect me to stay here forever, can you? I got my own family and they need me."

"Then why can't I go with you? I'd like to belong somewhere again." Brian sensed a great loneliness in the great beast.

"Well, come on, we'll see what happens." Brian was doubtful. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Just call me Dog." Brian got a sense Dog didn't care what he was named.

"Okay," Brian told his new friend, "but I got some doubts, I got some real big doubts. You don't know my mom.

When she makes up her mind nobody can change it."

"We'll see." Dog led Brian around the hill and back to where Brian's parents sat in the shade of their big motor home, while they drank iced tea and listened to the FM radio play old people's music from the eighties and early nineties. "There you are. You aren't going too far away from the..." She screamed and Brian thought his fillings were going to explode. GOOD LORD THERE'S A MONSTER BEHIND YOU, LOOK OUT." His mom was the best

"screamer and yeller" of any female parental unit he knew of back in Minnesota. Brian was willing to bet she could be heard almost all they way back to Minnesota.

His dad was much less excited. In a very soft and controlled voice he said, "Now Son, when I tell you to, you walk slowly toward the door to the motor home and slowly go in. Honey, you slowly get up and very slowly go to the door when Brian opens it and slowly go in and lock the door. I am going to try and distract it, whatever it is."

"Dad, he thinks you're funny. He likes the way you are trying to protect Mom and me. If he wanted to eat me he would have done it up on the mountain. I want you to meet Dog, he's lonely."

The big, black scary beast sat on his haunches and held a front paw up to be shaken. He looked right at Brian's dad, grinned and waited with his paw up in the air. When nobody moved, he opened his mouth and went "meow." It was a credible imitation of an old tomcat.

Brian grinned and said, "See? He does imitations, too." Dog still waited for his Dad to shake hands.

"Who ever heard of a dog that sounded like a cat? I bet he must be some special breed and valuable too. Where's his owner I wonder?" He walked over to Dog, who now didn't seem so dangerous and said, "Hello boy." He

"shook hands" with Dog who then returned his paw to the ground.

"Well, Mom, Dad, he doesn't belong to anyone. His master died a long time ago and he has been waiting and looking for the right person to be with. He says, er..." Brian caught his slip and said, instead, "He won't go to just anybody.

"Can I keep him? He followed me back here and he's a real great person and, well... , " Brian was excited he had found Dog. At that moment he realized he wanted to keep Dog. Somehow Brian realized Dog would be very special to him, in fact he already was.

"Well, Son, we'll have to take him into town and look for the person that owns him," his dad replied, "If nobody has reported him missing, maybe we can cross that path when we get to it." At least his dad was sort of thinking about keeping this strange animal.

"Oh no." his mother cut in, "We'll cross that path right now. There is no way I am about to travel with a big, mean and smelly old animal. He might even eat us in our sleep. I am putting my foot down right now." And to prove it she raised her foot slightly off the ground and stomped it back down.

Dog wandered slowly over to Brian's mom and rubbed his head gently against her leg. Then he lay down on his back and stuck all four feet in the air and said, "Wuff." in a very low voice, not quite a growl.

"He likes you, Mom." Brian exclaimed. "See, he isn't smelly or dirty. He rides in a car real good, too." Brian thought for a moment and added, "I bet."

His mother relented a little. After all, the animal seemed to be okay. He looked big and scary, yet he acted like a little puppy almost. "Well, we'll see," she let herself soften up a bit.

"When we get back to Apache Junction we'll ask the police if they know of anyone who lost this dog. You can tell he has been taken good care of." From Mom Brian knew this was very high praise. His mother was not a fan of any big animals, except horses or cows that were supposed to be big.