Harold Walken awoke with a yell stuck in his throat. He had been having a nightmare about making a deal with a mischievous spirit of the forest and sky. It was nighttime in his dream, and he was under a full sky of moving lights and constellations, much like the sky he was gazing up at right now. In the dream, he was in a thick woods, but at the present moment he was afloat in Medicine Dan’s boat, surrounded by his new friends in this sudden twist of fate. Harold felt that most of life hinged on just such moments and often said so. He felt like saying so now but all the occupants of the boat were fast asleep.
.
He peered at them in the thin light of the moon. The girl, gangly and capable-looking, with a golden circlet on her brow that glinted like the dark water, slept seated with her arms crossed snugly across her chest. Alberto was next to her; he had also fallen asleep sitting down, but had tipped over and was now half lying and half sitting in an L shape, his head knocking gently against the side of the boat. The Book of Knowledge lay spine open between them. Then there was George Conley flat on his back down at the end of the boat, using an old coiled rope as a pillow. Sally the dog had disappeared beneath the brown blanket under the wooden bench beneath the sleepers.
Only Medicine Dan remained awake. He stood with his back to the party, one spotted hand on the time steerer, swaying back and forth with the movement of the boat.
Harold didn’t know how long he’d fallen asleep for. First there’d been the storm, he recalled to himself, which he reckoned lasted a good hour, but it was hard to tell on the river. Might’ve been a week in River Time. Then they’d all had some grasoline, and George had recited his poem again, this time with some additional hand gestures and what-not, and then the last thing Harold remembered was a lot of hullabaloo between Marylou and Medicine Dan about which side of the island to land on. They had taken over as co-captains, since Marylou had both the circlet and the map.
“Hard stuff, ain’ it” grumbled Medicine Dan, turning his head sideways at Harold. He gestured at the empty grasoline bottles in a heap.
“Nah, I was havin’ a dream,” said Harold. “Nightmare.” He rubbed his chin and cracked his neck.
“Something about making a deal with some kind of spirit er ‘nother. Spirit of the forest and sky, as it were.”
It was coming back to him now. He made a deal, he told Dan, and all the children became a constellation and had to circle the sky for a year, pulled along by the spirit like mules on a rope while he stood below and watched from the forest floor.
Medicine Dan whipped his head around at Harold, staring at him in pure alarm.
“That weren’t no dream!” he barked, startling Marylou out of her sleep.
“You,” he pointed, digging his lip snuff out of his pocket. “Bring yer map. Where are we now?”
He looked up from the map Marylou handed him, eyed Harold again.
“What is it?” Marylou asked, hugging her arms yet tightly around herself in the chill air.
Medicine Dan was silent for a moment as he studied the wrinkled map. Finally he spoke.
“Who are ye?” he uttered ominously, advancing towards the alarmed Harold. “What have ye done to us? Herliigs mean anything to ye? Sold us out to the sky spirit, did ye? Herlipigs!!”
With this he rushed at Harold’s neck with open hands, ready to strangle him or throw him into the Vertigo, it appeared to George Conley, who awoke at that very moment and rushed to try to help Harold.
The scuffling and cursing and yelping and screams of “stop! Don’t upset Sally!” that ensued woke Alberto, who could make no more sense of the scene than the participants who had been awake and witnessed the whole thing. Sally was moaning under the bench.
When finally the group had untangled each other and were restraining or being restrained, Marylou turned to Medicine Dan.
“What were you trying to do? Kill us all?” she demanded.
“Tweren’t me tryin’ to kill us,” he replied. “It’s the herliwigs. I’ve heard of ‘em, sure. But I never did navigate this part of the river before. From now on, everyone stays awake! And let’s just hope nobody else here was havin’ any dreams just now!”
The group sat in confused silence for a moment. Then Alberto cleared his throat with a little a-hem, and as one and all turned to look at him, he indicated the Book of Knowledge in his lap with a nod of his chin, and began to read.
Herliwig: (pronounced Hurleewig), also known as Herlea, is one of two air spirits that inhabit a particular river in the
No one moved.
“All right then,” Medicine Dan untwisted himself from George Conley’s grip. “Marylou, you double check that map and hope to tarnation I’m wrong on this. And as for the rest of yez, let’s have it. What were ye dreamin’ just now?”
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