The Great Everlasting

Morning Fawn is either one hundred and sixty years old or the greatest actress of all time. Dan’s problem is that she is stunningly beautiful and looks like she is twenty-five. Dan encounters Morning Fawn in an isolated glade in the Montana woods. His marriage is in shambles and recent dreams have been telling him to rent a hunting lodge in Montana. It is not hunting season and he has no reason whatsoever to be in Montana. At the last moment, his attractive wife decided to go with him to the hunting lodge.

Dan is thirty-four, tall, handsome and financially successful. Once at the lodge, a dream tells him to go for a midnight walk in the woods that surround the isolated lodge. It is on this enigmatic walk that he encounters Morning Fawn. She is a captivating Crow Indian, dressed in a magnificent fringed doeskin dress. Her hair is done in two long braids that hang over her breasts. Although afraid of him at first, she tells him that she is from the Crow Death Camp in The Great Everlasting. She further stuns him by telling him that she died on the Great Plains before the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

She shocks him again when she tells him that his wife and her current lover will attempt to kill him. She knows more about him that any one person could. She explains that she grows stronger every night and will meet him the following night when the moon is directly overhead. Over the next two nights they grow closer. She tells him that the Great Spirit has sent her to save him from his wife and her lover. His problem is that everything Morning Fawn predicts comes to fruition. His wife and her lover are plotting his death so she can get at his money and lucrative timber holdings. His death will make her a millionaire.

His wife has hired two Las Vegas hit men to kill Dan. That way neither she nor her lover will be suspects. Morning Fawn warns Dan about the men coming to kill him and jolts him further by telling him that they will confront the gunmen together. With Dan’s pistol and her bow and arrows, they prepare for battle. The Woman of Two Faces, a powerful Indian goddess, is just as interested in Dan’s demise; why is an enigma. While his wife hires more gunmen to kill him, the mysterious Woman of Two Faces sends Indian killers after him.

The battles rage from the woods of Montana to the High Sierras of California. Dan’s skill with guns and Morning Fawn’s ability with her bow, arrows and scalping knife, make them a formidable pair. Dan grows to love Morning Fawn and she tells him that she will be the wife he never had. She tells him that The Great Spirit has sent her to be with him in The Great Everlasting. Even though she tells him they are a match for the diverse killers, she also tells him that each soul has a season. What does she mean?

DAN HARRINGTON STOOD SIX feet, three inches tall, with light-brown hair and piercing gray eyes, ruggedly handsome and a muscular two hundred and twenty pounds; a seasoned combat veteran who considered himself to be a rational man.

But an event earlier, shortly after midnight had caused him to question this self assessment when yet again awakened by another disturbing dream. In it, an ethereal voice had told him to take a walk in the forest surrounding the isolated hunting lodge he had rented for the week. A lodge rented in faint hope the change of environment might put an end to his nightmares.

Following the dictates of this latest dream, he dressed, took the pistol from under his pillow and followed the trail into the dark forest. A trail that led a mile and half to a small lake, near a moon-bathed glade. It was there she appeared suddenly out of nowhere, a startling vision, a beautiful native Indian woman who emanated an aura and charisma of trustworthiness that overwhelmed all his senses. Her raven hair was plaited, the twin decorated braids tumbled like dark waterfalls over her shoulders. She wore an elaborate doeskin dress beaded and fringed, matching moccasins and an elk-tooth choker around her delicate neck.

He tried to appear casual as he felt the cold steel and the stag grips of his pistol, which seemed real enough. Convincing himself he was awake, he approached the woman, but hesitated when her body language indicated she was afraid and ready to bolt.

Immediately he stopped and said, “Good evening.”

She cautiously nodded recognition.

“Isn’t it a little late for a walk in the forest?” his question made him feel foolish. Again she nodded.

“Do you live around here?”

“Yes.” Her haunting voice mesmerized him. Her almond-shaped eyes gave an appearance that was almost Oriental. She had prominent cheekbones and her skin was the color of sage honey.

“How is it you're out alone this late?”

“I...I came to warn you.”

“Warn me?” Her response caused him to frown. “Warn me about what?”

“Sleep with your weapon in your hand tonight.” There was that ethereal tone to her voice as in the dreams. It sent icy chills down his spine.

“Am I in danger?”

She nodded solemnly.

“From...from thieves?”

Slowly she shook her head, her braids swinging.

“If not from…”

She interrupted, “From the woman.”

He was caught off guard, took a deep breath, then asked, “You mean from my wife?”

“No,” again she shook her head, “from the woman.”

He was puzzled. “But there's only my wife, back at the cabin.”

“She is not your mate. Sleep with your weapon. Trust me; sleep like the mountain lion. Keep one eye open.”

“I don't un...”

Again she interrupted. “I must go now.”

“Please don't, I need to know more.”

“Just heed my words.”

“Will I see you again?”

“Tomorrow night,” she assured him, “when the moon is again overhead.”