Chapter 2

For the last five days, Shannon had struggled against the relentless warm western wind coming straight at her like a huge Hollywood film fan placed in front of she and her bicycle. It was very hard peddling into it and her eyes were drying out almost as fast as she could put moisturizing eye drops into them, having to stop every so many miles just to stay comfortable. Even behind her inexpensive but wrap around sunglasses, it was killing her to keep looking into the wind and the difficult effort of being bent over the handle bars to lessen the wind resistance, hour after hour, with that horrible wind in her face, was slowing her pace dramatically. She figured she still had three more days before reaching Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Not her immediate but her long-range goal, for the moment. With her home designed single speed bicycle with Italian geometry, Taiwan manufactured, and American styled, the beautiful bike of hers called a Firenze, she was battling the winds for all she was worth.

She heard herself grunt at the effort, once. That had never happened before on this trip and Shannon knew she was right at her limit of strength, and should stop to rest, and eat something, then drink even more water than she thought she needed. The wind was not so terribly hot, but it was constant and sapping the moisture from her like a sponge. Her skin was wind blown and red, sunburned too, probably, especially her face as she and felt the warm glow of it for days, now.

There was a single tree in the far away distance, off to the side of the road, where she could stop to eat. It was blurred, being so far away, and with her eyes already dry, feeling like there was sand in them, Shannon knew she could stop there to re-moisturize her eyes, but also considered when she could make it to the tree, how long it would take to get there to be out from under the relentless sun. Two minutes? Six? Eight? That was unknown, but still, she wished it were closer.

Each downward pump of her legs brought it a tiny bit closer and after a few minutes, Shannon was stopped under the shade of the large cottonwood tree, common to the Midwest and western states of America. It was just off the road and the ground was well compacted in front of it. Other travelers had obviously stopped to rest there before her with the amount of beer, soda cans, coffee cups, and fast food bags laying all around. Some people were such pigs, she briefly concluded.

She stood straddling the metallic red Firenze and then slowly dismounted. She was a bit stiff from being in the saddle for so long, and wobbly, as both feet ended up on the one side of the bike, but she was able to steady and right herself without too much trouble, though she felt the vibration from exertion in her front thigh muscles, knowing they were being taxed to their limits. She needed water, and lots of it, plus salts and minerals.

Shannon unzipped one of the panniers and removed two quarts of water in one container in what used to be a large apple juice bottle. She took out a candy bar, noticing the chocolate inside had melted to some degree and was squishy. Along with that, she removed her peanut butter jar and the flour tortillas. It was long past noon and she was out of energy. Even with this food inside her, it would still not be enough. She was almost out of money, too, and if she didn't find some way of getting more money soon, and thus, food, she would certainly be hurting.

Shannon found a spot near the tree's coarse bark and sat down in the gravel. She looked at the food as she unscrewed the cap to her water bottle and then drank heavily from the container. The warmish liquid felt so wonderful and satisfying to her parched, wind dried mouth, she couldn't help but release a long gasp of appreciation after drinking. It was the nectar of the gods to her.

She took the little vial of eye moisturizer out of her shirt pocket and gave her eyes their much needed help. The cooling effect of the eye drops felt wonderful.

After spreading peanut butter over her one tortilla, Shannon slowly ate the food. She'd ran out of her last apple yesterday. Some of these tiny towns she traveled through had no services at all and she had to ration herself to get to the next one, not knowing what was coming up for her down the road. Thank goodness for the water, though, she thought. It was tough enough without the amounts of food she actually needed, burning all the calories she did, but without the water it would be impossible to travel this huge mid western state. Nebraska was enormous.

Shannon finished her tortilla and opened her candy bar. The chocolate was melted, but it was just messy, though it tasted fantastic. She licked the Three Musketeers wrapper clean after consuming the candy bar and drank most of her water, leaving maybe a pint in the bottle. She picked up a few pieces of other peoples trash, she couldn't collect it all, laying around nearby, and put it with her zip lock trash bag. She always thought the statement of Cain's, in the Bible, was an instruction metaphor, that 'we are' our brother's keeper, even if they were trashy. She put the extra papers and crushed cans she could carry in her pannier and would discard it all in the next town she hit. She already knew the name; Hyannis. She had no idea if it was large or small or if their were any facilities or stores. Most of these small towns had at least a gas station, with some kind of snack food, but not all did. It was kind of like flipping a coin, heads or tails, and you never knew if you'd come up a winner.

Shannon only had about seven dollars left out of her fifty-seven she'd started out with, when she decided to leave home for good. This would probably be her last purchase of food, coming up, in Hyannis. After it was gone, she didn't know what she'd do for money and food.

The crackle of thunder startled her. Shannon looked behind her and up at this huge thunder head that had arisen out of nowhere, and was looming like a giant of the sky, to the west of her. She could actually see it building at an unprecedented speed she'd never seen before. Lightning was crackling like brilliantly lit threads throughout the fast darkening cloud and twice, brilliant bolts of it hit the earth beneath. But it looked different. It looked kind of blue, which was odd.

With everything packed, Shannon threw her leg up over the seat and was just about to start peddling back into the wind when another, closer, bolt of blue lightening struck the earth. That was darn close, too close. She counted how long it took for the thunder to reach her ears. Slightly less than five seconds. That was less than a mile away and, she couldn't help but notice, acutely now, how this huge thunder head was coming straight down the road towards her.

Well aware that you should not be under tall trees during a lightning storm, Shannon was hesitant to stay there. But she had been caught out in open ground, during a hail storm, already on this bicycle trip, running away from home, and didn't want to be without protection that the tree might supply. Besides, she could see rain falling beneath the cloud already as it barreled down on her, which could turn to hail.

She swung her leg back over the saddle again and lifted the bike to the base of the tree then leaned the Firenze against it. It had no kickstand/side-stand. Her only raingear was a black plastic poncho and she got it out from the bottom of one of her two panniers, hanging from her rear rack. Shannon didn't put it on, just yet, hoping the storm would move off to the side, but watching closely, she knew she would have to endure the downpour of the rain and possible, close-by lightning. One of the hazards of the road.

The windy front hit like a slap in the face as bits of straw, sticks, and fine dust were kicked up in front of the oncoming cloud, half forcing Shannon to look partially away. The blue lightning was beautiful, though, being such a brilliant neon in color, and she could feeling the tingling of it in the air as well as the smell of ozone as the cloud was now upon her.

She looked up at the violently swaying cottonwood tree while it began to sprinkle and donned her rain poncho quickly.

I better move the bike away from the tree trunk, she thought. If the tree was going to shed branches of any kind, Shannon didn't want them coming down on her sweet transportation. She walked it away from the tree, into the wind and lay the red machine on the ground, about thirty yards from the trunk.

She started to walk to the other side of the road, further away from both things, the big tree that was already bent over dramatically, but close enough she could get herself and the bike back beneath it, if it began to hail very big or very hard, as the Midwest was known for. She'd want to rush back. And she didn't want to be near the metal of the bike, either. The tree might get beat up but the steel metal might attract electricity, too, so she was merely being cautious. She was struggling in the very strong wind, leaned way over, her head beneath the hood of her poncho, her hands tucked under it, too. Shannon was about to squat down to wait out the rain that was falling hard and heavy, now, when the lightning struck. It hit the asphalt road in front of her and blasted away part of its surface, throwing Shannon off her feet and backward, peppering her with black powdery soot, though she wouldn't be aware of this till later.

Shannon was stunned and couldn't hear anything but was acutely aware of a blue glow eerily surrounding her and all the ground nearby. Neon blue string lightning flickered through the air like long, thin, insects or cobwebs and seemed to be gravitating to her, entering her body. It was like watching a tinted movie without the sound. She didn't feel pain, but she felt a throbbing in her head. But with no pain, that was good, she thought, but it would probably come later.

As she lay there, beneath the cloud, unable to move, Shannon was thinking she wished it would all just go away, the storm cloud, the hail, the rain, the wind, everything, including the blue lightning, and in micro seconds, the cloud dissipated, as did everything else. I must have passed out, she thought. It was all gone.

The wind was especially surprising, now, as it was dead silent and dead still. She almost felt dead, herself, laying there in the middle of the road spread eagle. But slowly, she felt her limbs come back to life, as did her hearing. The throbbing of her head during the storm had stilled itself, too. She rolled over on her side and then onto her stomach. She slowly came to her knees and sat on her heels and looked around. The cottonwood tree was shredded. There were very few of the yellowing Autumn leaves left on it and many of the branches were strewn across the road and nearby ground, spreading out across the harvested field like bits of an enormous fan.