Thane Crozier's Page

Excerpt from Dreams Come True:
We started our hike and by nine o’clock the sun seemed warmer than it had been in the last few days. We were already sweating and we decided to take a break at the edge of the trail where two large boulders with flat tops waited for tired hikers to rest. We opened up our water bottles and drank. As I was lifting mine up to drain the remaining few drops, the glare from the sun forced me to clench my eyes shut and turn my head. I briefly saw red floating patterns behind my eyelids and when I opened my eyes I had to blink a few times in order to regain my focus. When I did, I saw something that I had dreamt about.
“There!” I said and Randy sat up straight as he had been lying back on his rock.
“What?” He asked.
“There!” I pointed down the trail about a hundred feet. There was a weird outcropping of rock that formed a strange long ‘V’ shape, almost like sideways bunny ears.
“What?” He asked again.
“The rock down there, from my dream. It’s gonna happen soon.”
“What’s happening?”
I thought about my dream; my dream about saving a young boy’s life at the Grand Canyon. It showed me where to find the boy, just behind that weird bunny-ear boulder, along a stretch of rock that hugged the side of the canyon like scaffolding on a high-rise until it eventually thinned out and disappeared leaving no ledge at all. The drop from the ledge was at least a hundred feet, the boy was on the ledge, and the father was – No time to think about the boy’s father, no time to think about the other dream – No time – No time!
The memory of my dream was shaken out of my head like a wet towel being snapped. I stood up and haphazardly started moving down the trail. I vaguely heard Randy calling my name and telling me to slow down but the sense of urgency that was upon me wouldn’t permit me to even think about slowing down.
“No time!” I yelled back to Randy without turning my head. “No time. The boy’s on the ledge and he’s alone and he’s asleep and he’ll fall off if. . . No time!”
I made it to the bunny-ear rock and climbed in between the two ears and scrambled onto the backside of the rock. I looked down and to my right and noticed that the canyon dropped off anywhere from forty to two hundred feet along the almost sheer side of the canyon wall. I looked and found the rock ledge that protruded out. It looked like a dangerous tier chiseled by some ancient giant to use as a foot hold. The boy was about fifty feet along the ledge, he appeared to be thirteen or fourteen, and because of his distance from me I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping, resting or unconscious. He was sitting on the ledge where it was only two feet wide, his back and head were leaning on the wall behind him, his eyes were closed, and his lower legs were hanging over the abyss below. He was missing one of his boots and dumbly I looked down expecting to find it among the hundreds of boulders and slabs of hard rock. I didn’t see his boot, but I could make out a pair of legs, his father’s legs, about sixty feet below midway between the boy and me. The legs weren’t moving. I shouted to the boy to wake up and I saw him lift his head abruptly.
“Sid, what’s going on?” Randy made it through the rabbit’s ears and was approaching my position. I turned and noticed that he must have fallen while chasing me because his right shin and both of the palms of his hands were scratched and bleeding.
“The boy from my dream, over there, I gotta get him.”
“It’s too dangerous, look at that ledge; it’s only a couple feet wide. Let’s go for help.” Randy was breathing hard and rubbing his hands together.
I looked at my friend and grabbed his shoulders as he made it beside me. The sun was bright and just to the right of Randy’s head. I moved slightly to have it eclipsed. “Randy, its okay. I dreamt this, I can do it. Understand? I have to do it, the kid was asleep and he might fall off the side without even knowing it. I can do this. . . I did do this.”
He looked at me and I could tell that he finally accepted my premonitions. He had his proof now; there was no way I could have set this situation up, I had been with him all day, we hadn’t been separated, and I told him about the situation before either of us saw the boy trapped on the ledge. “Okay,” he said quietly, “What should I do?”
“I think his father’s down below, maybe fifty or sixty feet. Take my backpack, it’s got the first aid kit in it, and take the trail down and see if you can cross over to get to him.” Randy nodded, grabbed my backpack and slung it over his shoulder and scuttled his way back towards the rabbit ears. I turned around and found the footing and handholds that would lead me to the ledge.