The Pick-up Chapter Seven: Radiant Saniyah
The air outside was washed clean, sharp with salt and eucalyptus. The storm had scoured the world, leaving everything raw-edged and shining, as if someone had peeled back a layer of time. Raven pulled her shades down low, squinting eastward where the rising sun gilded the wet asphalt like molten silver.
The bikes coughed, sputtered, then roared awake, exhaust steaming in the cool morning air. That first roll onto the highway was like sliding into another lifetime, smooth, inevitable, haunted. The kind of morning that felt like rebirth, but not the clean kind. This was the kind that carried shadows along with it, shadows that clung like smoke to your skin no matter how fast you rode.
I knew the storm hadn’t passed, Not really. It just changed its clothes.
I saw her as I topped the first rise, on the edge of the shoulder, thumb, not out but extended skyward in a gesture both invitation and blessing.
Her long hair carried braids, threaded with beads and feathers, reflecting sparks of the morning sun; not just a girl looking for a ride. No, not this one.
I felt it in my entanglment and was aware that Raven felt it too.
She had been placed there, awaiting us; waiting for Raven and me.
I eased knuckle in between her and the guardrail and shut off the engine, the sudden silence speaking louder than shouting.
I knew her. A part of me knew her, and had always known her. Her lips sketched out the smile I felt on mine.
Then, slow and soft: "Going my way?", and, knowingly, "Of course you are."
When she slid up behind me on the Knuckle, her hands at my waist were feather-light, but her presence weighed like stone; like earth itself. The air shifted around us, carrying the scents of sage, mesquite woodsmoke and desert winds, as though Sedona itself had spilled onto that Pacific beach. It smelled like home away from home.
Later, she would tell us her name: Saniyah, from the Arabic, meaning 'radiant' or 'brilliant'. And she was.
Hopi by birth, Diné by blood; granddaughter of a grand shaman whose voice was said to roll like thunder across mesas. She carried stories in her eyes and secrets in the small pouch at her side: peyote buds that pulsed faintly with the promise of visions soon to be realized.
But for now, she only smiled back at Raven whispering “Tonight. Under the harvest moon.” Raven whispered back, eyes locked onto mine, "Tonight, my lovers". Another promise.
And I swear, dear listener, even the road bent a little, to listen in approval.
Comments