for the first time in my life.
That had been Janet growing up. For Mick, the day had been still more important.
I knew now that Mick finding me in a fight on a back road in Nevada, and me trying to kick his ass, hadn’t been a happy coincidence. We hadn’t simply met by chance and hit it off.
Mick had been watching me. Following me. He’d been assigned to do so by the Dragon Council, because they’d been afraid of what I, a slip of a Diné girl, would do to the world. They were right to be worried—I hadn’t exactly been in control.
The day I’d declared my love, though I hadn’t known it, had been the day Mick decided to defy the dragons.
That morning he’d looked into my eyes and seen the real Janet, a young woman on the brink of life, horrifically powerful but innocent. I had the power to destroy the world and the latent anger to do it, but I saw no reason to. I wasn’t the crazy bitch my mother was. I was just … me.
That was the moment Mick decided to tell the Dragon Council to go screw themselves. That day, he stopped protecting the dragons from me, and began protecting me from the dragons.
He set in motion a long chain of events that culminated in Mick nearly dying for his choice.
For now, I was oblivious, happy to be out on the road, riding next to him, the miles of backcountry unrolling under us. I was with the man I loved and was free to do whatever I liked. That was all I needed.
Future Janet forgot, and lost herself in the pleasure of the past.
I dreamed, and never wanted to wake.
***
“Janet.” A voice not Mick’s whispered through my head.
Mick lay beside me on the hotel bed. We were in Montana, having ridden north all day and well into the night. We’d stopped for a while by the side of the road and looked up at the stars—a big patch of them between the tall trees.
Mick had pointed out constellations to me, showing me what humans saw—Orion, Cassiopeia, Andromeda. He even had powerful binocs so we could study the stars and moon more closely.
After that, we headed sleepily into the next town and found a motel with a vacancy. There were other bikers here, normal humans, fellow vagrants of the open road.
Mick, who didn’t know a stranger, soon made about twenty new friends. We shared beer with them, then finally went to bed.
Was Mick too tired to make love? Of course not. He never was.
He loved me far into the night, then held me as we drifted to sleep.
I woke in the small hours to the whisper of my name. I opened my eyes in the dark, puzzled, but the call wasn’t repeated. Mick hadn’t spoken—he lay heavily next to me, sleeping so hard he didn’t even snore.
I lay quietly and listened to the sounds of the night. I heard wind in the trees, the constant rush and roar that was a staple of mountain country. Out on the highway a lone truck rumbled by. Far beyond it came the ghostly drone of a train’s whistle.
A coyote was howling in the woods. Yip-yip-yip-yip-owoooo …
Coyotes were trouble, Grandmother always told me. They killed sheep, they dragged off lambs, they carried disease, they got into garbage. Basically they were overall pains in the ass, though Grandmother would never use those words.
I’d always envied the coyotes, running free and wild but never alone. They had packs, took care of each other, and adapted to changes in the world without missing a stride.
Yip-yip-yip-yip owoooo…
The coyote came closer. I hoped it stayed away from the motel, because some of the guys we’d met last night had guns, and they might think it fun to shut up the animal permanently.
Yip-yip-yip-yip owoooo … Janet!
I opened my eyes again as the howl coalesced into the syllables of my name.
Mick apparently heard nothing. He lay on his back, one hand behind his head, his hair a pleasant mess, and slept on.
I slid out of bed, snatched up Mick’s big T-shirt to cover my naked body, and padded to the window.
The curtains were open. Strange—Mick always made sure to close them before we went to bed. While he enjoyed making love to me in various and exciting ways, he had no intention of letting anyone else see. I knew the curtains had been shut.
I peered out to the back of the motel and a view of