A stranger shows up in East Embarrass, a small mining town in Northern Minnesota; he has no recollection of who he is.

Prologue
“The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers,
go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and the righteousness of men.”
—Homer


The sky above Superior National Forest radiates with greenish light. Giant curtains of red appear, blending with the green, slowly waving as if stirred by a gentle breeze. Blues and purples emerge, points of light swirling like a vortex. A whistling, crackling noise, like the voices of spirits trying to communicate with the living, accompanies the light show.
Farmers who’d been up at that hour would say these were no ordinary Northern lights. The colors were too bright; the eddies of light at the bottom of the curtain swirled too intensely; the red swatches looked like blood.
A dog in a farmyard begins to bark and within seconds others join in the cacophony. Lights go on in the farmhouses and threats are hurled at the offending canines. Other animals add their complaints: Cows bellow; roosters crow; pigs grunt; a horse jumps a fence on the Boone farm and rockets down the driveway, its hooves beating a tattoo on the hard clay. Now most everyone is awake, wondering what in God’s name is going on. Mrs. Swenson, a Seventh Day Adventist who has been anticipating this moment all of her life, rolls out of bed and gets on her knees, expecting momentarily to be whisked up into the air and into Jesus’s loving arms.
A man is standing in Ben Norberg’s driveway, reveling in the celestial display. The Norberg’s German shepherd starts barking, then races to confront him. The man reaches down and pets the animal. Whimpering, the dog licks his hand.
Inside the farmhouse, Ben Norberg awakes to a sharp elbow jabbing at his ribs. “Go see what’s bothering Sarg,”
his wife says.
“Shit,” he says, looking over at the red numerals on the clock. “I just got to sleep.”
“Better grab your shotgun,” she says. “Could be somebody up to no good.”
Unable to find his slippers, Ben pads across the cold hardwood and into the kitchen, slaps water into his eyes at the sink. A knock on the door causes him to flinch and suddenly he’s wide awake. He goes out to the porch where he keeps his shotgun in the corner next to the door. He opens the door and points his twelve gauge at a tall, long-haired fellow shivering on the stoop. “Easy mister,” the man says. “I was only looking for directions to the nearest town.”
Lowering his shotgun, Ben looks past the stranger out into the yard. No vehicle anywhere. “If you’re on foot,” he says, “you’ve got quite a walk ahead of you. Town is seven miles south of here. Would you like to use my phone?”
“I wouldn’t know who to call.”
Ben hesitates for a moment, thinking about all those stories he’s read in the papers about home invasions. But then his good nature prevails. “Why don’t you come in. We’ll figure something out.” Ben puts coffee on the stove, and they sit down at the kitchen table waiting for it to heat. The stranger sets a briefcase on the floor. They sit staring at each other. The stranger has the look of one of those male fashion models, with long, wavy hair and a couple of day’s growth of reddish beard. His eyes are a bit glassy and there’s a little scar on the bridge of his nose. “Your car break down?” Ben asks. “I could get my jumper—“
”I don’t have a car,” the stranger says.
Ben get cups for them from the cabinet and pours them both coffee. They both take a sip, the stranger letting out a sigh. “This is good,” he says. Ben’s tastes like battery acid.
“I can’t let you walk to town,” Ben says. “I guess I can give you a ride. What’s your name?”
The stranger hesitates for what seems a long time to Ben, then says, “Smith, Joseph Smith.”
Ben finds his jacket in the utility room and they go out into the yard where Sarg is sitting on his haunches, looking askance at the two men. They stop and look up at the sky, where the light swirls in breathtaking ribbons of green.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ben remarks. “Wonder what causes it.”
“Storms on the sun give off particles that are caught by the earth’s magnetic field. The sun particles stimulate gases in our atmosphere, giving off a glow. That’s the short version anyway.”
“You a scientist?”
“Not that I . . . Ah, no, just an . . . astronomy nut.”
Ben starts his old pickup and turns on the defroster. “The Finlanders call the lights revontulet, or fox fires.”
When the windshield clears, Ben puts the truck in gear and they head down the driveway. The stranger says, “You hear the Eskimo myth about the Northern Lights?”
“Not that I remember.”
“They say the land at the end of the world was bounded by an abyss, but a narrow bridge led to the heavens. Above, the sky was made of a sort of hard material with a hole in it through which the spirits passed to Heaven. The selamiut, or sky dwellers, enkindle torches to show the way. The torches are the Northern Lights.”
As Ben turns onto the main road, snowflakes begin to accumulate on the windshield, and he turns on the wipers. “Never heard that one before,” he says. “How’d you wind up out here all by yourself?”
“This is the best place to see the Lights. I got separated from my friends. More likely this is their idea of a joke.”
“Some friends. What do you do for a living, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Ah . . . temporarily out of work.”
By now the cab of the truck has warmed. Ben yawns. “Sorry,” he says. “Been up late delivering a calf.”
The truck climbs a wooded knoll and heads down into the valley. The Northern Lights have faded, but yellow, man-made lights are visible below. “That’s East Embarrass, coldest place in the lower forty-eight. Unless you talk to someone from Tower. We hit 64 below one year.”
“Brrr,” the stranger says. “Where’d they get the colorful name?”
“The Voyageurs thought the river was too shallow and narrow, hard on the canoe. They named the river, and the original town got its name from the river.”
Ben lets the stranger out on the outskirts of the little mining town on the Mesabi Iron Range. “I wish you’d let me drop you at the Northstar Diner,” Ben says. “It’s cold out there and that suit coat won’t be warm enough.”
“This will be fine,” the stranger says.
“At least let me give you my coat. It’s an old one I use for chores around the farm. If you want, you can drop it off at the Northstar. I can pick it up later.”
“I don’t want to put you to any more trouble than I already have.”
“Suit yourself.”
The stranger shakes Ben’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I know you’d do the same for me if you could.”
#
The stranger watches Norberg’s flickering red taillights crest the hill north of town, then turns and heads towards the houses in the distance. He finds himself walking along a street in a small Minnesota town with no recollection of who he is, why he is here, or why he’s turned down the farmer’s offer to drop him at a nice warm restaurant. It has to be at least twenty degrees, and it’s snowing harder. He blows on his hands and stamps his feet as he searches both sides of the street for refuge from what is rapidly becoming a full-scale storm. And then he sees it, a three-story house with all the windows lit up like a hospital. He opens the gate, walks down the narrow path, knocks on the door.
“Come in, come in,” an elderly woman says. “I’ve been expecting you.” Mrs. Kipley, who runs the boarding house, shows him to his room. “That will be fifty dollars,” she says. “For your first week’s room and board.”
He looks in his wallet and is somewhat surprised to find that he has at least two hundred dollars, plus credit cards. He hands her a fifty.
“I feel guilty charging you anything at all,” she says “Would you like a snack? You look hungry.”
“It’s awfully late,” he says. “I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
“No trouble, Sham-man. I have a big ham in the refrigerator. I can cut a few slices, and you can have it with toast. Something to drink? I have some Italian Cabernet I’m sure you’d enjoy.”
Suddenly he has a powerful thirst. “Sounds good,” he says. “If you’ll let me pay extra.” What had she called him? It sounded like Shaman. Did she think he was some kind of religious healer, and why would she feel guilty about charging him for his room? He is too grateful to find shelter to risk asking.
When she leaves, he lifts the briefcase off the floor and goes through the contents. An appointment book, an itinerary of sorts, and a data disk for a computer. The name on his driver’s license is Ian Summerhill. In the back of the appointment book he finds the name Arnie Vogel printed in bold block letters, and tucked away in a side pocket, a poster for a religious retreat entitled “Kids on Fire,” sponsored by a local minister named Phillip Greenleaf. Summerhill says the name aloud; the sound echoing in the small room, and a shiver creeps up his spine. He puts the poster back in the case and snaps it shut.
When Mrs. Kipley returns with his food and the wine, he asks if she might know where he could find a computer. She says her niece keeps a laptop in her room and he’s welcome to use that. Does he need it now?
“If it’s not too much trouble,” he says.
“We like to keep our guests happy. I’ll leave the bottle. I know you like your wine.”
How would she know that? Just who did she think he was?
He’s tired and his hands still sting from the short walk in the cold, but he stays up late sipping Cabernet and reading what’s on the data disk.
#
Later that morning, Mrs. Kipley climbs the stairs and listens at the door. The lights are still on, so she opens the door a crack, careful the hinges make no sound. The third floor is often cold, and she likes to make sure her clients are warm enough, especially a special guest like Sham-man. She’s brought with her one of her Double 9 Patch Eight-pointed Star quilts, a blue ribbon winner at the State Fair. Ordinarily it hangs on the wall in her bedroom, but she has laundered it especially for Sham-man. He is asleep on the floor next to the bed, the laptop cover still open. She carefully shuts off the machine, closes the cover, and sets the laptop on the desk in the corner where he’ll find it when he wakes. Then she tucks the quilt around Sham-man as tenderly as she might swaddle a new born baby. He might be a little stiff in the morning, but he won’t get pneumonia. She picks up the empty bottle of Cabernet and tiptoes out of the room. 

Strangers are from Zeus is a work in progress. Comments appreciated. A full-length novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Amazon.com.