The familiar smells of summer and Granny Goat’s garden enveloped Denver when he awoke at last from a deep, restful slumber. He heard the nearby caw, caw of a crow. When he attempted to open his eyes, a shard of bright sunlight left his head throbbing. Too tired to struggle, he lay still, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of an August morning. Feeling the sun grow hot on his face. Anticipating Granny’s call. Denver. Lunch is ready.
     But this wasn’t Granny Goat’s garden. He remembered the stars and the warm night and the singing. He had slept for a long time. More than just a morning nap. Granny had left years ago. Years before high school. Before the bumpers and fenders and broken glass. Before that thing under the comet.
     Shading his face with his hand, he opened his eyes once more. Between his outstretched fingers appeared a streak of green. He spread his fingers. Long green stalks. Reaching up into a cloudless blue sky. A field of corn.
     Leaves whispered. The crow complained noisily. Beneath him the rutted ground had become uncomfortable, and Denver shifted, not yet ready to rise.
     Then, one of the cornstalks laughed.
     “Who’s there?” he asked.
     Another stifled laugh. The voice from last night.
     “Who’s there?” he asked again.
     A shadow fell across his face.
     “You’re a strange looking boy,” said the cornstalk.
     He craned his head in the direction of the shadow. A pair of worn leather shoes materialized beneath a long yellow skirt. Above them, a slightly plump figure filled out the remainder of an old-fashioned cotton print dress. A girl about his age. Dark brown skin framed by shiny black hair. Darker even than Granny Goat. A look of total seriousness on her face.
     “I’m Saphronia.” She smiled at him. “Saphronia Griffin.”
     “Well you’re one to talk,” Denver shot her his most annoyed look.
     “I was referring to your odd clothes.”
      Denver sat up. He looked at his baggy summer shorts and tattered tennis shoes. Then he looked back at her. “What’s this Little House on the Prairie crap?”
     “There’s no need to be profane,” she said. “Your daddy ought to give you a good switching.”
     “I don’t have a daddy.”
     “Then your mama ought to.”
     “You’re really weird,” Denver leaned back on his elbows. “Are you from another planet?”
     “Maybe.” Her tone softened. “Are you from here?”
     “I could tell you if I knew where the hell I am.”
     Saphronia grimaced. “I think we’re dead,” she said, matter-of-factly.
     “We can’t be dead,” Denver replied. “We’re talking. We’re breathing, aren’t we?”
     “Then where are we?”
     Denver was stumped. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sure looks like Kansas to me. Haven’t seen any Munchkins yet.”
     Saphronia looked puzzled. Denver had a very strange feeling in his gut. If this was Kansas, that would be odd enough. He knew it wasn’t Oregon. Somehow, Arcturus seemed almost plausible.
“Was that you singing last night?” Denver asked.
     Saphronia looked sheepish. “Sometimes singing can give you courage.”
     “What are those songs?”
     “My gram taught them to me.”
     “Oh,” Denver grunted.
     He sat up and looked around for the first time, seeing nothing but corn in all directions. An uncomfortable dryness burned his throat. “I’m thirsty.”
     “There’s a small creek and some trees at the edge of the field. Over there,” Saphronia gestured, “where I spent the night.”
     Denver jumped to his feet. He could still see nothing over the tops of the stalks. “Let’s go.” He looked at her, then charged off before she could reply.
     Saphronia ran after him. “Wait!”
     Denver ran until he could see the top of a tree, and hear the sound of water. He waited for her to catch up with him. Where the cornfield ended, the land began to rise gradually. Between two hillocks flowed a trickle of water, not much more than rushed down the gutter on a rainy Portland day. When he reached the creek, he threw himself down on the bank, and slurped water thirstily, throwing it on his face and head.
     When he was satisfied, he turned over. Saphronia sat down beside him on the grass. He propped his head up on his arm, scrutinizing her. She was kind of pretty in a peculiar way, he thought. She wasn’t like any of the girls at school. She seemed more alive, somehow. She looked at him quizzically. “So?” She asked it as though it were a complete question.
     “So, what?”
     “So, it’s your turn to introduce yourself.”
     “Oh,” he said. “I’m Denver.”
     “Well, pleased to meet you, Mr. … Denver.”
     “Denver DeLeon,” She was beginning to irritate him again.
     “Like Ponce de Leon.”
     “Yeah. He was my uncle.” Saphronia looked away and became silent. Denver wished he hadn’t had such a smart mouth, sometimes. He looked at the back of her head, at the curly locks of black hair falling down across the neck of her yellow dress. At the dirty, worn fabric of her dress. Then he looked down the gentle hill at the cornfield, feeling a growing unease.
      “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked her.
     Saphronia turned around and tears filled her eyes. “My little baby. I remember my gram holding up my little baby. He was all bloody and crying. I hurt so bad. He just stared at me from the doorway –the Reverend did– hell and damnation on his face.”
     A dozen questions collided in Denver’s mind, then fell away. It was all too crazy. Not that anything up to this point in his life actually made a lot of sense.
     “I don’t remember anything,” he said.
     It was true in a way. It all seemed like a dream.
     “You aren’t from Oregon.” he continued. “I mean, this isn’t Oregon.”
     “I’ve heard of it,” Saphronia wiped the tears away on the back of her sleeve.
     A small finger of hope touched Denver. “You have?”
     “The Oregon Trail,” she said. “The Reverend says the white settlers want to steal the land of the Paiutes and the Chinook. Just as they’ve stolen our land in the Smoky Mountains.”
     “Wait a sec,” sneered Denver. “You’re saying that this is the Wild West, and you’re an Indian princess or something, right?
     “Europeans have princesses,” she was indignant. “The Tsalagi don’t have a monarchy.”
     Denver stared at her in puzzlement. Tsalagi. A word spoken in a dream. Denver, you are Tsalagi.
     “Jaw - lawg - ee.” He pulled the word out cautiously. “What does that mean?”
     “The whites say Cherokee.”
     “Granny Goat was a Cherokee.”
     “Your gram?”
     “She used to tell me stories.”
     “She’s dead…?”
     “I think so,” said Denver, “but sometimes I talk to her.”
     “Yes,” Saphronia looked sad. “Sometimes I talk to my little brother Jack. And my Mam. They died of cholera, the Reverend says. On the walk…”
     “What walk?” asked Denver.
     “On the Trail Where We Cried.” said Saphronia.
     “Where who cried?” snapped Denver. “Look. I’m not in the mood for riddles.”
     “You said that you were Cherokee,” said Saphronia. “I thought….”
     “I said Granny Goat was a Cherokee.”
     “Then so are you. So why don’t you know….”
     “I don’t know anything about Indians.” Denver interrupted. “Granny just told me stories. That’s all.”
     “Oh,” sighed Saphronia. “The Reverend says that’s what’s wrong with us. Too many have forgotten the Kituhwa ways. We think we’re white. He’s made me read books. All kinds of books about the world. He says we need to be smarter than the whites.”
     “Who the hell is this Reverend, anyway?”
     Saphronia frowned. “The Reverend’s my pa. He’s a Baptist preacher. But he believes in Kituhwa. He says that we Ani-Kituhwagi must remember the old ways.”
     “Ani-Kitu what? I thought you were Cherokee. I’m confused.”
     “Cherokee is the white man’s name. Ani-Kituhwagi means people of Kituhwa. It’s an old sacred place in the Smoky Mountains.”
     “The Smoky Mountains. That’s back East, isn’t it?” said Denver.
     “The Reverend says it’s very beautiful,” said Saphronia. “I was only four when we left. It’s in No-eth Ke-oh-lah-nah. That’s how Reverend McCool says it. No-eth Ke-oh-lah-nah. The white folks talk that way back there. Really slow.”
     “I know that,” shot Denver, “I got a Television, you know.”
     “What’s a tele …what did you call it?”
     “A television,” said Denver.
     “Is that like a telescope?” asked Saphronia.
“You don’t know what a television is?
     “I said so, didn’t I?”
     “I suppose you don’t even know what a computer is? Or a video game?”
     “No,” Saphronia glared at him. “And you don’t need to speak to me like I’m an ignorant fool. I’m not.
     “Look,” said Denver, dismayed. “You seem pretty smart…”
“You mean for a girl.”
“I mean for … for someone before … oh, forget it!”
“Before what,” insisted Saphronia.
“I know this will sound weird,” said Denver, “but where I come from, everyone has a television. You can see things, like movies and shows and things that happen on the other side of the world. And you can write a message on your computer and people in Russia can read it the same day.”
     “Like a telegraph?” asked Saphronia. “All the way to Russia?”
     “Faster than a telegraph,” said Denver. “And you can send pictures and music.”
     Saphronia laughed. “Oh, you’re making this up.”
     “I’m not,” Denver was deflated. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m here now.”
     Saphronia’s face grew solemn, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “My baby. I want to go back to my baby. She sighed and her gaze became fixed on something beyond Denver’s field of vision. “The Reverend says we’re sinners. He says we deserve what we get in life. But I don’t believe that. My little baby doesn’t deserve to be left alone without a mama. And when little Jack died, he was just a baby too. He never hurt a soul.”
     Denver wondered if Mama would miss him like Saphronia missed her baby. He stood and looked out across the cornfield, feeling a shiver on the back of his neck. He cocked his head slightly. Listening.
     “What’s wrong?” Saphronia stepped up beside him.
     “I don’t know.” All Denver heard was the slightest rustling of leaves, the clicking of grasshoppers. A tiny breeze, cool, came down from the hills. “I think we should go. We should get you back to your baby. So he doesn’t have to be without a mama.”
     Saphronia looked back toward the cornfield. “There must be a farmhouse nearby.”
     Denver stood, facing the hills, the breeze gentle on his face. A face fixed firmly ahead. An unnerving chill ran up his spine. Something back there in the cornfield was watching him. Something called to him. Not a shadow, but something flesh and blood. Turn around, it said. Don’t be afraid.
     “Up,” Denver said. “We’ve gotta go upstream.”