Out on the
trail somewhere in the Laramie Mountain Range
The evening air was balmy. The night sky was filled with more stars than either man could count if they had wanted to. The stillness was astounding. No noises except for the crackling of their campfire, a nicker from one horse to the other and a gentle drone of bugs flying round that the unseasonably warm spell for late April had brought out.
Noah and Cody had made camp in a clearing at the base of the mountain range they were passing through.
They had finished with their evening meal and were relaxing, each lost in their own thoughts as they reclined against fallen trees ringing their campsite.
The fire they had built was more to stave off the desolate darkness that surrounded them on all sides than for warmth.
All of a sudden, Cody sat up, pointing into the night talking excitedly.
"Did you SEE that? Did you see that?” His voice was high pitched as he continued to point in the general direction of a strand of pines that could just be made out in the darkness.
Noah jumped when Cody startled him, babbling about seeing something. Noah had been half asleep thinking about what he wanted to do with his first paycheck from the Pony Express.
When Noah hadn't answered right away, Cody demanded, "That light! Did you see it, there above those trees?"
Looking to where Cody was pointing near some trees, Noah was about to say that it was just a star, when the words caught in his throat. THAT WAS NO STAR. Stars didn't bob and weave like that. And they didn't suddenly disappear either, not when there wasn't a cloud in the sky to hide them.
Noah wasn't sleepy any more and stood up to get a better look saying, "I saw something, but it's gone now." He looked back at the blonde rider who was now also on his feet. "That didn't look like a star, not even a shooting one. What do you think it was?"
Cody was surprised when Noah told him he had seen the light also. He was just about to offer a thought of what it could have been when much to his surprise and great delight the light was back again.
Slapping his knee and hollering, "Well, I'll be...Look at that! Not one but three lights!"
Noah tuned to look back at the trees when Cody said the light was back and with others.
Cody's eyes never wavered from the lights in the sky as they began to move slowly at first and then a little faster.
Noah watched as the lights slowly move closer together then parted again repeating the motions several times, each time moving a little faster each time.
The two men watched in awe as the lights seemed to dance across the darkness, zig zagging to and fro like fireflies on a warm summers night.
"I don't know what them lights are but it ain't like anythin' I ever seen before," Cody blurted feeling no fear and grinning from ear to ear enjoying the light show.
Noah looked over at Cody wondering why the grinning rider wasn't as unsettled as Noah himself was beginning to feel.
"I've never seen anything like this," Noah said as he looked over at the horses. They didn't seem to be concerned about anything unusual happening.
"Wonder what they're doin'?" Cody said to Noah as one light went to the north and another to the south.
At first they couldn't tell that the third one was slowly making it's way towards their camp until the reflection from the light shown upon the stream about half a mile from them.
"I don't know, Cody but it looks like it's getting closer. Like maybe it's looking for something," Noah said hesitantly as he watched the light refection shift directions on the water.
Noah had an overpowering hope that what ever the lights were looking for, it wasn't him.
"Cody, I think we should get out of the open and find some cover," he said nervously as he noticed that the ones that had moved North and South were also moving closer to them.
At first, Cody just looked at Noah in disbelief.
"What? Are you crazy?" he whined, arms gesturing wildly. "Why in the heck would we run away from a bunch of lights like frightened children?"
He couldn't believe that Noah would suggest hiding like that until he turned back to see the northern and southern lights were now also heading in their direction.
As the horses began to pull on their tethers, snorting and eyes rolling, he began to rethink Noah's suggestion to find some kind of cover.
Grabbing his rifle from where it rested against the log, he turned to his fellow rider, uncertainty in his voice, "Uh, maybe you're right Noah. Seein' how we don't know what they are 'n all..."
Cody didn't wait for Noah's response as he dashed towards the thick tree coverage behind them.
Noah snorted at Cody's change of attitude, but he was glad that he didn't have to try to convince him to take cover.
Following closely behind Cody, Noah threw himself into the thick wood cover. "Cody, normally children are afraid of the dark not the light, but right now I feel more afraid of those lights than I ever was of the dark."
Keeping as much cover as possible Noah looked out through the trees, watching the lights get closer and closer, bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter and he got more and more anxious.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and ripples of alarm raced up and down his spine.
"They're so bright, it's hurting my eyes," Cody called out to his fellow rider as he threw his arm over his face to shield it from the brightness.
"Mine too," Noah said trying to watch the lights despite the pain, tears running down his face as his eyes watered to help relieve the sting.
Cody peeked over his arm as the horses panicked, their ears twitching from the high-pitched sound coming from the light that the riders were unable to hear.
Noah could hear the horses fighting to get away from the lights and couldn't blame them. He wanted to run too, but another part of him wanted to stay and find out what it was.
"What you think it's doin' now?" Cody said in a hushed tone, as if talking louder would alert the lights to their hiding place.
One of the lights seemed to have stopped just above their abandoned campsite.
Noah placed his hand on Cody's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, before he whispered back, "I don't know what it's doing, but I think it stopped just above the campfire. How high above the trees would you say it is? It's so bright I'm having trouble guessing."
Cody tried to gauge how high up the light might be, but it was hard to tell not being able to really see 'it', only it's brightness.
Taking a guess, he whispered, "I don't know, maybe a furlong. Maybe more."
"I was thinking it was about 1000 feet, but I wasn't sure it's so hard to adjust my eyes." Noah nodded his agreement with Cody's estimate.
Cody lapsed into silence as the other two lights started to move slowly off the way they had come. The one almost overhead seemed to dim for a moment before if suddenly flashed out completely.
Noah sat with Cody in silence for a short time, watching two of the lights move off slowly and he was relieved when the one over the clearing blinked out.
Cody bent under a tree branch trying to see if he was able to make out if it was still there or not but all he saw was darkness up above.
Taking a step out from their hiding place, he called over his shoulder to Noah, "I think it's gone..."
Reaching for Cody as the other rider slipped out of the hiding place Noah said "Cody come back, I think we should wait until ..." he was interrupted as the light appeared again.
Cody was so startled when without any warning, the light reappeared, right where it had been, causing him to stumble backwards, falling on his rear.
Crab walking backwards, he moved as fast as he could back into the darkness. "Damn thing just about gave me a heart-attack!" he grumbled clutching his chest, breathing hard.
Grabbing Cody's sleeve, Noah helped drag him back into the trees, after he fell.
"I just bit my tongue," Noah complained as he nodded in agreement with Cody again. His heart wasn't beating normally either.
"I think we should stay here until we are sure it's gone," Noah said as he looked back at the light.
It seemed to be flashing now, not on and off, but dim-bright-dim-bright. Noah glanced at Cody shrugging his shoulders as if to say, "I don't know, please don't ask," and tried to move further back into the trees.
From their hiding place in the trees, Cody noted that the other two lights were also doing the dim-bright-dim-bright thing also.
"Maybe it's some kind of code. Like they are talkin' or somethin',” he offered as a guess as to what was going on now.
Wishing that Cody wasn't saying what he himself had been thinking, Noah said apprehensively, "Talking lights? ...Flying... talking... lights? Cody, you know how crazy that sounds? But I agree with you," Noah admitted with some reluctance.
The horses had started to calm down a bit, but were still restless. Cody noticed that there was no other sound in the woods behind them and mentioned it to Noah.
"Since them lights showed up I haven't heard a wolf or nothin' else either." This made him feel uneasy about the lights they were watching. Animals had a six-sense about things and knew if there was danger present, even if it could not be seen.
Noah couldn't even hear the Katydids, he'd never heard or not heard that before. "It's almost like all the animals and insects feel the same sense of dread as we do isn't it?"
The light suddenly flashed so brightly that for a split second Noah saw everything around him as clear as if it was mid-day, but just as suddenly everything was dark. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the sudden brightness and the equally sudden darkness that for a few heartbeats he was literally blind. "Cody?" Noah called into the darkness.
Cody could hear Noah calling his name, but he couldn't see him. The light had flashed so brightly that he was unable to see when it suddenly flashed out and darkness covered them once more.
After several minutes, his eyes were beginning to adjust enough for him to see that there were no longer any lights in the sky. The horses had settled down and were quietly grazing on grass once more.
Noah's eyesight came back slowly as he blinked and shook his head. He strained to look around for the lights, but he didn't see them, and all the insects were making noise again. Slowly Noah came out of the trees, looking around. He still didn't feel quite right.
Looking towards their camp, Cody was confused when he saw that the fire they had been sitting by a little while ago that had flames dancing merrily into the dark was now only a pile of glowing embers.
Turning towards Noah, he rubbed both his eyes, not sure he had been seeing things correctly. "Hey Noah, look at the fire and tell me what you see," he called to the other rider who was still having trouble seeing himself.
When Noah could see fully again he looked over to where Cody was pointing at the fire.
At first Noah wondered what Cody was asking about, then he noticed the fire was no more than smoldering embers. "Who put out the fire?" Noah asked as he walked toward the fire. He was confused.
Looking back at Cody for answers, Noah saw the first fingers of light reaching over the edge of the world to bring dawn and a new day. "What?! Cody, how long did we watch those lights?" Noah asked in a surprised and shocked voice. He would have guessed forty-five minutes, maybe and hour at the most.
Noah was behaving funny and Cody wasn't sure he wanted to know why. Too many strange things had been happening over the last hour and he was too tired to deal with anything else.
When Noah asked how long they had been watching the lights, Cody gave him a funny look. "About an hour, why?"
He knew he'd never get to sleep, wondering and worrying about the lights and if they'd be back so he asked the other rider, "What should we do now? I don't think I could sleep even if I tried, though I'm exhausted."
"That's what I thought too, but it's a good thing you ain't tired Cody. 'Cause it looks like we gotta start ridin'. It's dawn!" Noah said nodding toward the East behind Cody. He was perplexed and racking his brains trying to figured out where the time had gone.
"What are you talkin' about? We just made camp a little while ago!" The blond rider asked perplexed.
Cody swung around to look east and was dumbfounded when he noticed the first rays of light coming over the hills.
His mouth opened and closed once, twice and then frowned. "What the hell is goin' on?" he wondered looking over at Noah who looked just as confused as he was.
Noah just shook his head. "I don't know Cody, I just don't know. I don't remember falling asleep, but I don't remember about six or seven hours of the night either. This whole thing has been ... well it's been strange. First the lights, then the animals and now this." Noah kicked at the last of the fire and pointed at the brightening sky. "I don't know. But I don't think that we should tell the others. I don't think they would believe us. I wouldn’t believe us and I was here."
A shiver went down Noah's spine. He still couldn't shake his sense of trepidation. What had happened during the missing hours? He just couldn't remember.
Cody stood confused, watching Noah kick out the last of their fire.
He may not be sure of what had happened to the two of them during the night, but he did know Noah was right in saying that the others would never believe them.
Still perplexed, he went over to his bedroll that hadn’t even been opened, picked it up and walked over to his horse.
"What do we say when they asked us how the ride went? You know that someone always asks." Cody sure didn’t want to mention the lights, knowing everyone would laugh at him; sure he was making up another story.
The horses were grazing calmly as if nothing strange had happened the night before. 'How easily they forget,' Cody thought, wishing he could be as lucky.
Walking over to Restless, Noah tossed his saddle onto the geldings back. "I guess we could always tell them the truth."
Noah glanced over at Cody and seeing his disbelieving look, Noah finished his statement. "We can TRUTHFULLY tell them that the time seemed to go by so fast we didn't notice it and we can TRUTHFULLY say that the stars were so bright they were almost blinding. We just don't have to tell them the rest. Unless you can come up with a better story?"
Cody saddled his horse and tied his bedroll on the back before throwing his saddlebags over the pommel.
Hand resting on the pommel he stopped a moment and looked over at Noah. "Like anyone would believe us if we told them what we saw anyway. I know I tell a good story, but this...this would be too much!"
He swung up onto his saddle and clicked his heels against its flank. As the horse began to move, he smiled over at Noah and joked, "Good thing Hickok wasn't here or he'd probably have shot at the thing getting us all killed!"
'Now why did Cody put it like that?' Noah wondered. The lights hadn't done anything to suggest they were in any danger so why did both he and Cody seem to know they could be?
Shivering with apprehension for some unknown, but half remembered fear. Noah mounted Restless and call over to the other rider. "Let's go home."
"Sounds good to me!" Cody said smiling as he urged his mount to go faster.
He was anxious to leave this place behind.
"Don't think I'll volunteer for any rides out this way anytime soon," he told Noah who was riding along side of him.
The two men rode on in silence, each lost in their own thoughts as they headed towards the familiar, home and family.