Thunder Stone

It was a hot and humid July evening when Jan walked up the sidewalk. She had just completed a double shift at the hospital where she worked as a nurse in the pediatric ward. As she climbed up the stairs of her front porch, she saw a package sitting by the front door. It had the Amazon logo, so she knew that it was the new coffeepot she had ordered a couple of days ago. She had stopped off at the grocery store and had her hands full with her purse and the grocery bag. When she tried to unlock the door, she missed getting the key into the lock, briefly stumbled and dropped the grocery bag. Mumbling to herself, she managed to retrieve the errant bag and got the door open. She walked directly into the kitchen and set the torn bag on the table. Still muttering to herself, she returned to the front porch to retrieve the package. As she stepped onto the porch, she noticed a new package wrapped in paper sitting on top of the Amazon box.

“Where did this come from?” she thought to herself . “I am Sure it wasn’t here a few seconds ago.”

She carried both packages into the living room and proceeded to open the box containing the coffeepot. She extracted the parts and put them together and took it into the kitchen where she washed it out and proceeded to make a pot of coffee. The new pot worked fast and a few minutes later she was sitting on the sofa with a fresh cup of coffee. She was exhausted, after having just worked 24 hours straight, but her mind kept jumping from one topic to another. Soon, her eyes began to droop, and she fell asleep in her recliner.

She was in an old train station and stood in front of a counter. On top of the counter was a package wrapped in paper and tied all around with string. She did not know where she was. Nothing looked familiar. A man came up to her and said something but there was no sound. She did not understand anything that was happening. Soon, the man took the package and walked away. At this point, she woke up and tried to remember everything that had happened, but it was all jumbled up and made no sense.

She took a few sips of the cold coffee and tried to shake herself awake. A few minutes later she gulped down the rest of the coffee and walked into the kitchen and placed the cup in the dishwasher. She stretched and did a few body twists to get rid of the kinks. Jan was 20 years old, and her birthday was coming up in just a couple of days. She had booked a cruise on the ‘Serenity of The Sea’, leaving Vancouver, BC in just 10 days. This was her birthday gift to herself. A cruise to Alaska was just what she needed.

She was thinking about fixing dinner when she remembered the suspicious looking package that had suddenly appeared along with the new coffeepot. She walked into the living room and stopped suddenly. She stood looking at the coffee table. This is where she had set down the package, but it was no longer on the table.

“Okay.” She thought, “What did I do with it?” The coffee table was empty except for the box that the coffee pot had come in. No weird box.

“I know I brought it in. Where did it go?” She asked herself.

She searched the whole house but found no package.

“Wow”, she said to herself, “You really need this vacation Jan.”

After fixing a quick out-of-the-box, dinner and a couple glasses of wine, Jan headed for bed. She fell asleep within minutes and slept a dreamless sleep, at least it started out that way.

She was in a train station standing behind a woman at a counter. This time she could hear the man behind the counter saying, “OK missus, I’ll have this package on the next train”. A sign behind the counter said ‘Railway Express’ next to it was a calendar showing the year 1974. On the counter sat a small paper wrapped package tied with string. Jan looked closer at the package. It had an address written on the top of the box. It was addressed to a Miss. Winona Guyman, will call, Denver Colorado. The station attendant picked up the box and carried it into the backroom. The lady turned around and Jan could see that she was an elderly lady with short white hair pulled back into a bun. She appeared to be in her 70’s or possibly 80’s. The lady looked directly into Jan’s eyes and said, “You must open this package before July 4th.”

When Jan woke up a bit later, the dream still felt very real. “Who the heck is Winona Guyman?” she asked herself. She got up and walked over to her computer and Googled ‘Winona Guyman, Denver’. There were 3 people in Denver with the name Winona Guyman. But only one of them was born prior to 1974. So, Jan decided, this must be the one, unless of course, the right Winona Guyman was either dead or moved out of Denver. This one was born in 1942 so she would have been 32 the year the package was sent which would make her 79 now.

“Why”, she kept asking herself. “Why was it sent, why did it end up on my porch and why did the old lady tell me I had to open the package before July 4th, which just happened to be her 21st birthday and where the heck is that damn package?” So, she Googled ‘Railway Express and 1974’. A story popped up about a train wreck that happened in July of 1974 that destroyed 27 railcars and resulted in a massive fire that was caused by three tank cars, carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline, being ripped open during the derailment. The article mentioned that hundreds of Railway Express packages were destroyed in the fire as well. She also learned that Railway Express was discontinued the following year.

Rather then help solve the problem, it just added more questions. So, Jan concluded that she was mistaken about seeing the package and it must all be nothing more than a very realistic dream. She decided to just forget the whole thing and went back to her bedroom to get dressed. She was due at the Gym in less than a half-hour and her trainer did not condone tardiness. She got out her yoga pants and halter top, put them in her gym bag and headed out the door.

She was in a hurry and jumped into her Jeep and sped away. As she got to the corner, she did a ‘California-stop’ and turned onto the highway. Unfortunately, a Delivery van, that Jan had failed to notice, was coming up fast. Too fast it seemed because it hit the Jeep hard and caused it to spin around and flip over onto its side. Jan’s head hit the side window frame and knocked her out cold.

She woke up in a hospital bed with a neck collar on and her arm in a cast. Fortunately, the arm was the only thing broken. She had multiple cuts and contusions. But she was, as the doctor said, “A very luck woman”.

With the anesthesia combined with her elevated stress level, she dozed off.

Somewhat later, she heard someone calling her name, “Janet, I need to talk to you.”

She opened her eyes and the same woman she had seen in her dreams was standing at the foot of her bed looking directly at her. “Janet, you need to listen to me.”

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?” she yelled.

“My name is Winona, same as you and you are my granddaughter.” Said the woman.

“My grandmother”, she stammered. “I never met my grandparents, my real parents either for that matter.”

“I know dear,” she continued. “You were born in La Jara, Colorado in a two-room shack that was on a ranch owned by Ed Guyman. He was your father. Your mother’s name was Leota Thunderhawk. She was my daughter. They called me ‘hataałii’ or shaman in your world. Your mother also had the same powers that I had and that you will soon be given on your 21st birthday”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying”, Jan said.

“Listen to me Janet. Your birth name is Winona Guyman, and you will be given special powers on your 21st birthday but only if you are in possession of the ‘Thunder Stone’ which I sent to you before you were even born. You must find the box and open it before July 4th, or your powers will be given to your brother who is not capable of managing the power and will release untold havoc to all women of Navaho decent. You cannot let this happen.”

“I’m a Navaho… I have a brother… What kind of power?” she asked.

“Yes, dear you have a twin brother. But he got the bad mojo, and you got the good. It is imperative that you get the stone.” And with that, she just faded out. Jan pressed the call button, and a nurse came in moments later. “Am I awake?”, she asked.

“Well honey you sure do look like it to me. Want me to slap you so you’ll know for sure?” she joked.

Later that evening, she was released from the hospital, waited for her Uber to arrive, and headed home. Still trying to make some sense of the weird conversation she had with a dead person; a grandmother she never knew she had. Arriving home, she immediately went to the living room and looked once again for the suspicious box wrapped in brown paper. Nada, nothing, nowhere to be found.

Tomorrow, less than 15 minutes from now, was her birthday, July 4th and apparently, if the whole thing were real, she would gain some unknown power. But only if she could find the missing box. Suddenly, she had a vision as in a dream, a vision of a box. It was sitting in a closet under a pile of dirty clothes. “That can’t be.” She thought. “Is this one of the powers I’ll be getting?” She ran up the stairs and walked into the walk-in closet in her bedroom. On the floor were several pieces of clothing that she had dumped earlier. She pulled off the clothes and there on the floor was the box. It had a Railway Express label addressed to Winona Guyman. She picked up the box and walked over to the bed and sat down with the box on her lap. She turned the box over, examining every inch. “OK”, she thought, “time to open the box.”

She tried to break the brown twine that was tied around the box, but it would not break. She looked around the bedroom and finally found a pair of scissors in the bathroom medicine cabinet. She cut the twine and began unwrapping the paper just as the clock struck midnight.

Suddenly, the box just disappeared, and Jan was thrown backwards onto the bed. She did not wake up for 3 days and when she did her house was different, it was made of adobe and there were no pictures and the only furniture was the bed, a cot really, and a cracked mirror on the wall next to a calendar with the date 1974. Jan looked into the mirror and what stared back at her was the face of her grandmother. On the bed sat a box wrapped in brown paper.