by K C West
“Are you sure?” Leeja entered the discussion, speaking to PJ in a low, non-threatening voice. “Think about the nightmares and waking in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Think about the labyrinth, about how you reacted when you saw the bones. Your business often deals with bones. Why did they affect you so?”
I watched PJ squirm at the queen’s probing questions and felt compelled to try to rescue her. “PJ won’t like me telling you this, but she’s willingly going through therapy with a doctor in our time.
“Ah yes, Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Fleming.”
PJ stared at Leeja. “How do you know about them?”
“There are dimensions far beyond the obvious,” Leeja said, “where everything that has ever happened and everything that is happening, as it is happening, is laid out for all to see. The future, too, is there in what you might call a Book of Ages. We are all mentioned within its covers.”
“Hmph!” PJ’s snort echoed around the room.
“I had thought she was doing rather well,” I said, ignoring PJ’s tight-lipped expression. “But now, I’m not so sure.”
“The Book of Ages is there for all to see, but only when we are ready.” The queen’s expression was one of understanding and patience.
Marna turned her attention to me. “And you have seen Dr. Armstrong, too, but you’re not convinced she can help you. Am I right?”
“Yes. But what does that have to do with our being here?”
“You’re here because we care about you, and we want to help.” Leeja poured us each some more tea from the earth colored pitcher. The container’s design depicted women warrior figures in black, battling to the death. “We can help destroy your demons.”
“‘Destroy’ being the operative word. And in practicing your mumbo jumbo, you’ll probably destroy us as well.”
“PJ!”
“You need to willingly give yourselves to us before we can help you.”
“Do we have a choice, Your Majesty?” PJ’s expression was decidedly unfriendly. “Will we be shot full of arrows or sliced and diced with Mama’s sword, if we refuse?”
“I only do that in life and death situations,” Marna said, her eyes dancing in amusement.
I looked at PJ. “What do we have to lose?”
“A whole hell of a lot.” Her bottom lip quivered.
“For me, please.”
PJ’s hands fisted. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know I’m going to regret this.”
I focused first on Marna and then, Leeja. “Okay, what do you want us to do?”
“You will come with me,” Marna said. “We’ll be gone for several days, during which time you will learn the art of managing your anger.”
“You know about that?”
“Ah, yes I do. And you, Dr. Curtis, will spend time with Leeja expanding on what your healers have already taught you. She has much to tell you about your soul and will ask a couple of other women to assist her. You will learn a lot from them.”
“We’ll be separated?” Fresh tears welled in PJ’s eyes.
“Yes, but it will not be for long.”
“No. I can’t.”
“I know.” I pulled her into my arms. “I don’t want to leave you either, but something good may come from this.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You already have the heart of an Amazon.” PJ buried her face in my tunic. “You’re leaving me in Fiction Land while you go off with someone you’ve been in love with for centuries in your imagination.” She swallowed. “And now that she’s with us in the flesh, beautiful flesh, I might add, you expect me to go along with it.”
“You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t leave you anywhere unless you were perfectly safe.”
“I’m beginning to wonder.”
“You’ll be with Leeja, and I’ll be with Marna. Working separately, we may actually get some answers to our questions.”
PJ stroked the soft deer hide covering my stomach. “Only for you,” she murmured, “and only because I love you more than anything in the world.”
I kissed her again with all the love I possessed.
Marna spoke a few words to Leeja, kissed her tenderly, and stood to exit the hut. “Kim and I will leave right away. I have everything you’ll need for the journey.”
“And our group,” Leeja said, “will move up to a grotto in the hills. We will work there in peace.” She stood and took PJ’s hand. “I promise you will have no regrets.”
“I already have a ton of them.”
“Your Majesty, before we go, I have to ask, why was it that the scouting party that captured us didn’t take our medallions when they searched us?”
“They recognized the medallions as those belonging to certain members of the tribe, but weren’t certain they were real. Their leader told me they were afraid to take them from you.”
“Amazons afraid of something? Hard to imagine.”
“PJ, please.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I was curious about that.”
“I know you both have questions. We will try to answer them for you during the days ahead.”
PJ was silent, but her facial expression revealed her dissatisfaction with this whole scenario.
Marna and Leeja left to allow us to say goodbye. We hugged each other closely, sharing a kiss meant to last several days. We voiced apologies for words spoken during the emotional confrontation with Marna and Leeja. Neither one of us wanted to part on angry terms.
“Please don’t think that I’m letting you down,” I told her. “I’ll show you that’s not the case. We’ll find out what all this means, and we’ll be stronger after our separation. You’ll see.”
“Just come back to me in one piece, or I’ll never forgive you.”
“Absolutely. I promise.”
Chapter 11
Movement outside the hut meant that Mama had arrived with the horses. “I’ll be right there,” I called. Already feeling the pain of separation, I pulled PJ into my arms, kissed her gently, and whispered my love. It wasn’t easy leaving her here alone, but I trusted Leeja to take good care of her.
“When were you last on a horse?” PJ asked me.
“About seven years ago. I’ll probably be stiff as all get out when we arrive where we’re going.”
“Do you know where you’re going?” She was trying to be brave, but I could see the anxiety building in her eyes. The tears would come after my departure.
“No. How about you?”
“I heard the word grotto, but other than that, I’ve no idea.”
We embraced again knowing the physical contact would probably have to last us for several days. While I was reasonably comfortable with our situation, I could sense she was totally terrified.
“Isn’t it time for us to wake up?”
“I wish we could,” I said, going along with her theory that this was nothing more than a dream. I didn’t believe it, but this was not the time to force my thinking on her.
“Why can’t we all go someplace together?”
“I think they have reasons for doing it this way. We just have to wait and see what they are.”
“You still don’t believe that this is a dream, do you?”
“I didn’t say that. Whatever’s happening to us, there’s a purpose. Until we find out what that purpose is, we won’t know what to think of it.”
She hugged my waist. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go, but it’s something we have to do. I have a feeling it’ll affect the rest of our lives.”
“I was happy with our lives the way they were.”
“We have a long ride ahead of us,” Marna said, from outside our tent flap. “It’s time we were on our way.”
“Coming.” I grasped PJ again, holding her tightly against me, imprinting every luscious curve of her body into my memory. “Don’t be afraid. Leeja is a good person. You’ll be safe with her, as I will be with Marna. We have lessons to learn from these two.�
� I released her and turned quickly away. I didn’t dare look back.
*
We had been riding for several hours. Marna was ahead of me, astride a beautiful tawny-colored mare. She led a short, stocky packhorse loaded with furs and other supplies. My mount, also a mare, was black as midnight with a coat that gleamed in the morning sunshine.
After leaving the clearing, we had ridden through the forest, weaving our way through the trees. The dappled effect of the sunlight reaching the forest floor was mesmerizing. Marna, every inch a warrior, was attired in a shirt of soft material - silk I think, from what I could see of it.
Over that, she wore a black sleeveless tunic made of leather, and wide leather straps crisscrossed her chest. Metal medallions, carved with intricate designs, studded both the straps and also a wide belt cinched around her narrow waist. Below the tunic was a short, leather skirt cut into narrow slits, presumably for ease of motion, and to protect her lower legs from brush and thorns she had on leg covers that reminded me of modern-day cowboy chaps. Matching hammered bracelets accentuated her muscular arms. A wicked looking sword nestled in a scabbard across her back, another was fastened to her saddle, and a dagger was secured in a sturdy, but worn sheath at her waist.
We rode side-by-side through a narrow valley; we spoke little, except when we stopped to water the horses and ourselves. I could feel Mama’s eyes measuring my progress. “You’re already missing PJ,” she said, breaking the silence.
“And how would you know that?”
“You forget that I have love in my life, too, one that consumes my very being.”
I turned my attention from the trail to her. “So you understand how I feel. I do miss her, and I worry about her when I’m not around, especially now when she is so vulnerable. She just doesn’t understand what is happening.”
“Have no fear. Leeja will take good care of her.”
We climbed steadily into the hills and then up a mountainside. Because the trail was so steep in places, I leaned over my mount’s neck, placing my weight forward while the animal scrambled upwards over loose rock. I soon realized that these animals were surefooted and accustomed to such terrain, so the nervousness I felt when we started the climb dissipated.
It was almost nightfall when we came to a cave high on the mountainside. Though it had been warm down below, it was bitterly cold up there.
“Here, let me help you with those.” I reached for the heavy furs and skins that Mama was unloading from the pack animal.
“Put them in the back of the cave, close to the wall,” she said, as I struggled under the heavy load. I recognized the remnants of a campfire close to the entrance.
“I’m going to light the fire so that the heat is directed into the cave and towards us,” Mania said, as if reading my mind. It took her no time at all to gather some of the already blackened rocks and arrange them into a three-tiered semicircle behind the rudimentary hearth. In a short time, she had a good fire going, its orange flames warming as well as comforting us. With my imagination in cruise control, I visualized the flickering firelight painting animated pictures on the back wall of our cave.
When we first arrived, my legs and lower back ached from the cold and the long ride, but in no time at all, the fire had me feeling cozy and relaxed. It’s hell to get old, I thought, as we devoured bread and cheese and chased it down with wine.
Marna was the strong quiet type, but the strength she exuded as a warrior and a woman was palpable. It was hard to believe that this warrior and I were connected in a very special way. Looking at her now, in the flickering orange glow, I had difficulty visualizing the bones we had unearthed in Arizona. The story was on-going. My search for the lost tribe was a long way from being over. I hoped PJ would accept that fact.
I was so tired after a long day on horseback that I fell asleep as soon as I had crawled under my fur covers. Marna lay a few feet away. When I awoke, sometime in the night, I could tell from her heavy breathing that she was deeply asleep. It was in this primitive setting that my thoughts turned to PJ. I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I was comfortable with her being part of Leeja’s entourage, and I knew she was safe. That helped ease the loneliness and the longing I felt for her.
*
Snow had fallen during the night, obliterating our tracks to the cave, but painting a wonderland of white, punctuated with the darkened shapes of snow-crowned rocks and tree trunks. The slightest whisper of a breeze filled the air with tiny, glistening particles, reminding me of a Christmas paperweight that, when shook, created a snowstorm within its tiny, plastic dome.
“So, we’re here,” I said, as we ate our breakfast of fruit and sipped mugs of hot tea. “Now what?”
“All in good time.”
After banking the fire, we left to gather wood - windfall that would continue to keep our cave warm.
“Have you ever hunted?” Marna asked.
“As a youngster, but I can’t stand to kill anything now.”
“You’d better get over that in a hurry. That is, if you want to eat.”
After tidying up our bedrolls and clearing up our breakfast things, we put on our robes and prepared the horses for the hunt. It was a cold, crisp morning and the thought of sitting on a horse for I don’t know how long was hardly an inviting prospect.
As soon as I was comfortably settled in the saddle, I urged my horse forward, allowing it to follow Mama’s. I admired the ease with which she rode while leading a packhorse.
After what seemed like an hour or so, we arrived at a small mountain meadow that was serene and undisturbed. Apart from the occasional snuffling of the horses, we were surrounded by silence so pure that I found myself holding my breath. Marna dismounted gracefully and dropped to one knee. She first studied the ground, and then squinted into the shadows of the forest.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Scouting a game trail.”
“How can you track anything with all this snow on the ground?”
“There are signs. There are always signs.”
“You’re really going to kill something for us to eat?”
“Of course.”
“What about the food we brought with us? Isn’t that sufficient?”
Marna stood up and turned to look at me. “We have no meat.”
“Can’t we make do with what we already have?”
“Not when it’s this cold. We need the fat to keep us warm.”
“Warrior dietician,” I said, but Marna ignored my facetious comment. Her knowing look annoyed me.
We sat behind a snow-covered rock looking across at the tree line. I grumbled about the prospect of killing anything, fat or not. Marna wrapped herself in a fur robe, large enough for both of us, but she did not offer to share.
The cold gnawed at my bones. In no time at all I was shivering. I could see that Marna was comfortably wrapped in the heavy robe, and I worried about my own impending hypothermia.
“Hey, I’m freezing. Is there another robe that I can use?”
“Not one that isn’t the result of a kill.”
I gritted my teeth and said nothing, but I began to doubt my feeling of security. I was out here, alone in the wilderness with this warrior. As a person from a more modern and civilized era, I was not as equipped as she was to survive on my own. And at the moment, Marna didn’t seem to care about my welfare.
She stiffened and stared across the meadow to the tree line. I couldn’t see anything, but she was already notching an arrow into her bow. A moment later, she laid it down. “A doe,” she said. “One that will live and produce again.”
“Is that all she is to you, something that exists merely to procreate?” I met her cold eyes with anger.
“You need to remember where you are and in what time frame you now exist.”
“It’s all the same, your time or mine. There are too many who would have the female in the kitchen and continually pregnant. That goes for humans in future times, too.”
“You are angry.”
“You’re damned right I am.” The rage I was feeling provided enough internal fuel to keep me warm.
Marna sat perfectly still, staring forward, weapon ready.
This time I, too, saw the slight movement. Marna notched the arrow, sighted, and released it all in one smooth operation. She jumped up, threw the robe in my direction, and ran across the clearing to where the stilled body of a buck lay in the snow.
“Here’s your damned robe,” I said, when I caught up to her. Disgusted, I threw it down on the ground and stared at the once magnificent buck. The eyes were now sightless and dull, its blood seeping into the snow. Tears froze on my cheek. Marna knelt beside the animal and intoned what sounded like a prayer before rising. She bled him out and cleaned him, leaving a feast of steaming entrails for the scavengers. After stuffing the cavity with snow, she stood and let out a shrill whistle. Her mare trotted over, pulling the pack animal still tethered to her saddle. Marna lifted the buck and hoisted him effortlessly onto the pack horse. Although skittish with the carcass on his back, he settled down when she whispered soothing words into his ear.
Back at the cave, Marna dressed her kill, ignoring my smoldering anger. She wrapped the hide to be worked later, and cut the meat into manageable pieces.
*
The aroma of fresh meat sizzling over the flame played havoc with my gastric juices, but I was determined to hold on to the anger I felt at seeing such a noble animal slaughtered. “What were you saying back there?”
“I was thanking the buck for allowing us to kill him and get enough food for several days.”
“What do you know about how he felt? I’m sure he didn’t awaken this morning with the idea of allowing himself to be killed.”
“I know more than you think I do.” With that, she curled up and fell asleep, leaving me gnashing my teeth in frustration. I wanted a confrontation. I wanted her to fight back, to feed the rage that was churning within me.
I sat for the longest time, staring into the flames, listening to Mama’s even breathing, and growing angrier by the moment until I fell asleep from pure exhaustion. When I awoke, the sun was high in the sky. Sometime during the night, Marna had covered me with a robe.
