We quickly dressed for our ride through the Rocky Mountains. I put on sturdy boots, soft leather pants that would protect my skin while I rode a horse, a red cotton long-sleeved t-shirt, followed by a warm, wool sweater. The weather at higher elevations would be cold. I dressed in all brown, which was not my favorite color, except for the red t-shirt under the woolen sweater. I grabbed the jacket that I would undoubtedly need later.

Eli’s outfit was similar to mine with brown boots, brown leather pants, and a brown leather jacket. He put a black knitted cap on his head and I grabbed a red one from the coat rack beside the stairs. We packed enough food for three days, bottled water, a small tent, rain gear, flints for lighting fires, extra clothes, and a few minor luxuries, like toothbrushes, soap, and toilet paper. We filled a couple of backpacks and some totes with our treasures and I mentally looked over our gear to reassure myself that we were really ready to travel. While we could just hop over to a store anywhere in the world if we forgot something, it was often hard to explain a sudden appearance or a lack of local currency. American credit cards were not always welcome.

Eli and I had lived primitively for many years, so I didn’t mind it for short periods of time. Knowing I could come back to my apartment would keep me sane when the weather was cold and shelter was scant. I think I missed hot showers the most when I was living off the land. And hair dryers. And indoor plumbing. And pillow-top mattresses. And air conditioning.

We turned off all the lights and appliances before Eli transferred us to the stable where his horses waited. In that instant, before we vanished, I thought I saw something move at the top of the stairs. Before the image registered on my brain, we were in the Valley in the Caucasus.

Eli whistled by putting two fingers in his mouth. The sound was shrill and echoed off of the mountains that towered above the valley floor. The horses ran to us from their grazing spot deep in the valley. Bronte, the glistening white mare, Euos, the huge black stallion, Sterope, the dappled gray mare, and Abraxas, the red stallion, kicked up bits of sod and dust in their headlong charge toward us. They were much larger than a Shire horse, but their body configuration was the same with a powerful and muscular build, a dense rounded body, a broad back, strong loins, powerful hindquarters, and long legs with dense bones.

Sterope is a sweet horse. If she likes you, she will move heaven and earth for you.

Euos is a one-man horse. No one other than Eli has ever been able to ride him. He is temperamental and irritable.

Abraxas is probably the prettiest of the four with his true-red coat, but he is not the brightest. He is a good, steady horse that does what he’s told without argument.

Bronte is a drama queen. She is the first one to get upset, and the first one to complain if things aren’t right with her. But, she can run all day without tiring.

Of the four, I liked Sterope the best, so I chose her most often to ride. However, on this particular trip, I mounted Bronte because she objected to packhorse status. She would complain far less if a person was on her back instead of equipment. For my part, their backs were so broad it was a difficult ride for me, forcing my hips wide. A couple of hundred years ago, Helios commissioned a saddle for me that allowed me to bring my knees up higher and ease the strain on my hips. If we were riding for long periods of time, I could even turn sideways in the saddle to give my back and legs a break.

Eli loaded our supplies on Abraxas and Sterope and added water and food for the horses. He opened a cabinet located at one end of the barn. It had a lock on the door and was further secured by cellular manipulation. Eli waved a hand to unravel the spell he had put on the door, to use conventional terminology. The door swung open of its own accord. Inside the closet, we stored our weapons. I preferred a spear, but it was only good as a pike for close fighting primarily because I couldn’t throw it very far. So, I removed a crossbow and a sturdy, short sword. Neither Eli nor I had gotten into the habit of using guns, although I owned several and was quite proficient with them. They seemed somehow less sporting and we would only use the weapons for food and not for defense. I hoped.

Eli strapped on a sword that hung across his back. He could remove the weapon in a single movement by grabbing the hilt that rose above his left shoulder. He hung a crossbow from his saddle. Around his waist, he wore a pouch for the quarrels. He put a high-powered rifle and a shotgun on Abraxas’s back with our supplies.

My own sword hung at my side and I slung the crossbow over the pommel of Bronte’s saddle.

Bronte’s back was too high for me to mount in the normal fashion, so I admit to transferring myself up. Telekinesis is a great tool sometimes.

We were ready in less than an hour after leaving Norfolk. Bronte, for all her size, managed to daintily prance back and forth while we waited for Eli to climb onto Euos. Sterope tossed her head and whinnied. I think the old dear was as eager to see new things as me. We walked the horses out of the barn and then Eli took off at a run across the valley, giving Euos his head. Eli didn’t like abandoning his horses every day and many times we slept with them or spent our evenings with them. Eli never failed to groom them or talk to them. I think he loves his horses far better than he loves me, but I am not jealous. I have learned to fiercely love them, too.

Then, we took to the sky. What happens is the horse will be galloping along and then suddenly, the ground falls away. There is no change in the rhythm of the horse’s stride, at all and if my eyes were closed, I don’t think I would even notice the change. Only the absence of the clattering hooves lets me know we are airborne.

The valley that Eli had claimed as his own has been in his hands for three hundred years. No one ever challenged his ownership, partly because it is so secluded that it is impractical to get to it. The only way in or out of the valley which is about ten miles long and four miles wide is by helicopter over the mountains or by telekinetic prowess. Also, the valley has been hidden from the eyes of men and satellites by magic. Google Earth shows a mountain where our valley rests.

The valley is beautiful with a small lake at one end that’s fed by mountain springs, trees up the sides of the mountains, and a broad grassy plain down the center. In the summer the meadow is strewn with millions of colorful wildflowers. In winter, it is protected from the harshest of weather by the mountains that surround it.

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Near the barn is a small house built after the style of peasants from northern Europe, with a grass roof and a dirt floor that is pounded rock hard from years of use. The house is buried under a hill and reminds me of a Hobbit’s home from the fiction story. The door is painted red and red trim circles the windows. It has a kitchen with a wood stove, a living/dining area, and a bedroom. The rooms tend to be irregular in shape and size, but it has suited Eli and me for many centuries. He keeps it in good repair and there are even fall flowers growing in the flower boxes under the windows and along the footpath leading to the front door.

Eli circled the lake twice before he transferred all of us to our destination half a world away. We were still airborne when we arrived near Ares’s home in less time than it takes to read about it. So as not to attract attention from the wrong people, Eli landed the horses quickly and when they touched the path before us, again I could detect no difference in Bronte’s stride. The only difference was the steady clop, clop of her hooves hitting the path under her feet.

The four horses could fly by their own telekinetic ability, but I think Eli leads them with his metaphysical talent. For over the past thousand years, it has been more about hiding the great horses than allowing them to exercise their abilities. People used to stare at them in awe when they saw them soaring overhead. Today, they would be mistaken for UFOs or some over-eager military personnel would try to shoot them out of the sky. So, other than their valley, Eli rarely allows them to fly anywhere else.

Our destination was high in the Rocky Mountains, somewhere in Alberta, Canada, although I wasn’t certain of the precise location. The sun had already set, leaving the mountains in deep shadows. The air felt crisp and cold and the trees had shed their summer finery to don their drab and scant winter cloaks. Even the evergreens seemed to be preparing for the winter ahead, with their needles not quite as shiny as they are in the summer. Eli stopped Euos and waited for me to come abreast of him.

“Ares’s place is about five miles to the west and higher up the mountain. If we stop here and make a fire, he will know of our arrival. He will probably come to us.”

“Okay. This looks as likely a place for a camp as anywhere else,” I said. The jump to the ground jarred my ankles and I held onto Bronte’s saddle for support while I regained my balance.

The north wind blew and I pulled the warmth of the sweater closer to me. A few more degrees lower and I would need the leather jacket. Rather than worrying about the weather, I pulled the saddle from Bronte’s back.

With years of practice behind us, Eli and I moved around the camp, unloading horses, setting up the tent, gathering firewood, and starting the fire. I used a Coleman lantern to light the camp’s area until we got the fire going with a cigarette lighter. No rubbing sticks together, thank you.

The campsite Eli chose was little more than a break in the evergreens that seemed to be mostly white pines. Eli set up the bright yellow Arctic tent on the one level spot we could find. The whole area had a slight incline with bare rock underneath the covering of pine needles. I walked around the area, looking for wood for our campfire and gathered enough fallen branches to last us through the night. The resinous wood caught fire easily, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the smell of burning pine sap.

Two hours later, we sat side by side on a log waiting for our dinner to cook. I brought some tomatoes and sausages that I cooked in a pan. The sausages alone would send wonderful odors wafting up the hill to Ares’s cabin.

Eli didn’t tether the horses because he knew they would stay close to him. It was comforting to me to hear their occasional sniffling and their breathing.

I gazed over to the four. They are more intelligent than any other horse, but not as intelligent as a person. They tend to react rather than reason. They can puzzle out simple situations, like finding the best place to cross a river, but they can’t plan a route. I once got into their heads to see what they were thinking and I found far more instinct than coherent thought. It was like they recognized faces and edible items, but their thinking is so different from mine, that it was difficult for me to understand them. They don’t understand the concept of money, but they do understand clothing. They recognize fire as a place of warmth, but they are also afraid of it. Also, they don’t seem to have any concept of the passage of time, which makes it far easier for us to leave them for a few days at a time if we have to.

Eli stabbed a sausage with a fork and blew on it to cool it. “I can’t hear your friend Bill Townsend,” Eli said, suddenly. I knew he was referring to Bill’s thoughts.

“Neither can I,” I replied. “Either he has more psychic abilities than he lets us know about or he is just naturally quiet-minded.”

“I suspect your friend has latent psychic tendencies that scare him. Why else would he seek the owner of a psychic bookstore to help him in his investigation? He is subconsciously trying to understand his talent.”

“But, he just as quickly discounted our statements, too,” I reminded Eli.

“People have a bad habit of believing what they want to believe. I think we will see your friend, Bill, again.” Eli stood and stretched. His hair was still caught in the long, heavy braid and it swayed back and forth when he moved. It fascinated me in ways I can’t describe. In the firelight, it looked even more red than normal—the deep orangey-red of a sunset. He reached a hand toward me and pulled me to my feet. When his arms encircled me, I didn’t protest. Automatically, I touched his long braid, hefting its weight in my hands. I truly loved his hair. When it wasn’t captured by a thong, he used it as another man would use a cape. And when he lay on top of me, it was a silky blanket that kept us both warm.

He kissed me and I knew his mind went the same place mine did at that moment. We walked to the tent, hand-in-hand to settle in for the night.

The tent was small, but that made it first, warmer than a larger tent, and second, it necessitated Eli and me sleeping close together, not that either one of us minded. He kissed me gently as we undressed each other, using our clothes as ground cover. Finally, he pulled warm blankets over both of us. We faced one another, with our arms wrapped around each other. I could tell he was glad to be there and I rewarded him with a deep and passionate kiss. He moved me to my back.

Every time we made love, I was amazed at how good it felt to be totally connected to another person. Not only were our bodies joined as closely as two bodies can be, but our minds were also joined at the same time. During those intimate moments, I understood his innermost thoughts and feelings that went far beyond the intimate physical sensations. Eli and I were truly one being when we were joined together, in a way that no human couple could understand.