Fall into Fire (Shamans of the Divide, Book 2)

Chapter Two

The sun was setting in the distance, washing the sky in bright strokes of pink and gold. I was in a camp chair next to Leonard and we were facing a good-sized campfire out in the middle of a field behind the house. Billie was inside leading a group of older women in some poetry-writing exercise.

I wasn't much into poetry and was relieved when Leonard made me follow him outside to the fire pit.

We'd sat in silence a good thirty minutes while he poked the logs with sticks and threw all manner of green, leafy branches in the flames. The smoke was thick and blew right into our eyes. Leonard held up a wrinkled hand.

"Don't hide from the smoke," he said. "It's our ticket in."

"In where?"

He smiled at me.

"You'll see," he said, poking some logs with another stick. The twigs he used kept catching fire on the ends, losing their length. He had pile of standby sticks sitting underneath his chair. "Or maybe you won't. I don't know."

I huffed a little and coughed a big whiff of smoke out of my lungs.

"Helpful as always, Mr. Whalen," I said just a little sarcastically.

Leonard chuckled but didn't say anything.

When the sun had disappeared just below the tree line along the western horizon but left enough light to trap us in a strange in-between world of sunset colors with no sunset, Leonard began a soft, rhythmic chanting.

I assumed he was singing a Shoshone or Cheyenne song, but Leonard was a smart old bear and Billie told me once that he spoke more Native American languages than she could count.

I didn't doubt her.

The chanting was a soothing cadence after I got used to it. Watching the flames expectantly, I got a little disappointed and bleary eyed from the smoke when nothing happened, but I knew better than to complain out loud.

In Leonard's world, everything required patience. Everything.

It was getting darker outside by the minute and while the remnants of the sunset were still high in the sky, so was the faint image of the moon. I loved this part of the day and thought it was pretty symbolic to what Leonard was attempting to show me. A bridge between two worlds. The time of day when you can see the sun and the moon. A small opening where we could see the physical and the spiritual. Of course, I'd yet to see this magical portal window Leonard talked about. This was the third night I'd sat outside with him and there'd been no luck the first two nights, only really sore eyes and a t-shirt that smelled like a camp out.

He'd had the gall to tell me no when I asked if I could at least bring out some S'mores supplies tonight.

"Take it serious," he'd admonished.

I looked at Leonard now, his long hair unbound around his shoulders to the middle of his back. His eyes were shut and he chanted.

Leonard was a shaman. Not one of those strange goblin or orc creatures from the video games I'd played back in middle school with the loincloths and the electricity spells that flew like sparks from their fingertips.

No, a shaman, and a good one, too. A real, live link between the spiritual and the physical who could communicate with whatever roamed the power lines within the Continental Divide. It was rare to make contact, he'd warned me. Spirits liked to be left alone in their world and he likened too much contact on our end to an annoying telemarketer who didn't have the good sense not to call during dinner.

"Spirits can be grumpy, too," he'd said.

Just as my ridiculously short patience had reached its limit, I heard Leonard's sharp intake of breath.