Mountain Moonlight

by Jane Toombs

  "Mokesh never said goodbye, either," Davis commented.

  They fell into single file with Bram in the lead and Vala bringing up the rear, which made conversation difficult. Once she called ahead to Davis to ask how he was doing. "Okay," he told her.

  Though she tried to keep her mind on today's travel, her thoughts drifted to what was troubling her most. She no longer worried so much about Davis being disappointed if they found no treasure. The trip itself had turned into enough of an adventure to give him something memorable to bring home. What bothered her was Bram. Or, rather, what had happened between the two of them. No, that wasn't quite right, either. The real problem was how she was going to cope after she was back in New York--without him.

  She had no illusions that their coming together was anything more than an interlude to him. How and why had it become more than that to her? Maybe because until now she hadn't had any interest in a man since the divorce.

  Shaking her head, she scolded herself--come on, be honest. You know it's not just the sex. In the first place it wasn't just sex, not with Bram. You made love with him. Love. The word seemed to hang in the air like a warning beacon.

  Bram watched for the subtle landmarks Pauline had told him about, but that didn't take all his attention. His thoughts circled, homing in on what he kept coming back to-- Vala. When they started off on this trip, he didn't plan to make love to her. When he realized how badly he wanted to, he'd still tried to control the temptation. Then it became inevitable and he was lost.

  He still felt lost. Making love with Vala had set him down on an unfamiliar trail, with no recognizable landmarks. He was traveling blind, uncertain where he was headed. If he'd thought about it at all, he might have believed once he gave way to his driving need for her, he'd be free of it. How was he to know the need would increase with each time they came together?

  It scared the hell out of him to even consider there might be more than sex involved, but he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit his feelings for Vala were one hell of a lot more complicated than that.

  He wished the trip was behind him and she was gone.

  At the same time, he dreaded saying goodbye.

  "I see the Needle!" Davis called.

  Bram pulled himself out of his reverie. Fine guide he was to miss the tall spire of the outstanding landmark in the Superstitions--Weaver's Needle. There it was, clear as anything, visible between two peaks.

  "Didn't Pauline say to keep bearing left?" Davis added.

  "You got it." The kid was going to be a helluva guide some day. Good sense of direction, despite his getting lost that once. Knew his way around a horse, too.

  Some time later, Bram decided they'd come as close as they were going to get to the place where Pauline had said the snake landmark once was. He called a rest halt.

  When Davis slid off his horse, Bram noticed him gingerly rub his rear. Must still hurt some when he rode. They'd make it a short day.

  "I wish that old snake hadn't crumbled away," Davis said. "I would've liked to see it."

  Bram pointed. "By Pauline's account it hung off that rock over yonder."

  A thick stand of greasewood prevented any attempt to get closer to where the landmark snake once was, so Davis tramped around the area looking for a way past the barrier. Bram noticed Vala keeping an eye on her son, but she didn't call out any warnings.

  Bram had started to walk over to her when he heard Davis say something. He turned to look.

  "Mokesh, Mokesh, Mokesh," Davis chanted in a low tone, over and over.

  Bram stared at him, noticing the boy was frozen in position. He changed direction rapidly, heading for Davis. As he came closer, he held, his attention caught by movement on the ground. Snake. The most dangerous kind--rattler.

  Not moving, with the familiar snake-sighting chill crawling along his spine, he watched the snake glide in under the greasewood and disappear. Big one.

  "Any more?" he called to Davis.

  The boy broke from his frozen position and ran to Bram, who put an arm around his shoulders. "One rattlesnake was enough!" Davis told him.

  "More than enough," Bram agreed.

  "I was watching out 'cause Pauline said I had to be extra careful about snakes today. When he rattled at me, I remembered what you said so I stopped moving. He wasn't coiled so I stayed still and waited and did what Pauline said and sure enough, he didn't try to bite me."

  "What happened?" Vala demanded, hurrying up to them. "Are you all right, Davis?"

  "He spotted a rattlesnake," Bram said, playing it down. "He had seven rattles." Davis put in.

  Vala glanced around nervously.

  "It's okay, he went in the greasewood," Davis assured her.

  "I'd still rather get out of here," Vala said.

  Bram nodded and they remounted. He wondered why the boy had been chanting Mokesh's name--is that what Pauline had told him to do if he met a rattler? Why would she do that? Mokesh did have sort of a hissing sound. Ndee words often matched the animal they described. Bram blinked.

  Where had that thought come from? And why had he suddenly recalled what the word Mokesh meant?

  Golden Eyes. Rattlesnake.

  The story his father had told him about Mokesh began unraveling in his mind, a story he would have sworn minutes ago that he'd never heard. Another blocked memory. How many of them had he stowed away like that?

  Troubled by the realization he'd selectively eliminated another good memory of his father, he passed the rest of the day's trip in a half-daze, paying just enough attention so they didn't get off the right trail. As he'd intended, he called an early halt.

  "Doesn't look like we'll find a better place than this for a night camp," he said, noticing that Davis didn't protest. The ride had to be making him hurt.

  Once they'd set up and chowed down, Bram asked Davis what Pauline had said about rattlers.

  "She told me that's what Mokesh's name meant and if I didn't scare the snake, it'd go away peacefully if I chanted that name over and over. So I did."

  "Didn't do any harm," Bram said. "And you remembered what I said about snakes. Smart kid."

  "I was scared," Davis admitted.

  "That's smart, too."

  "I'd have screamed," Vala put in.

  "Maybe it's a good thing I saw the snake and not you, Mom."

  "I'd just as soon neither of us had seen it," she told him.

  "Speaking of snakes," Bram said, "when it gets dark it's my turn to tell a story." Very deliberately, he added, "It's one my father told me when I was a kid. He wasn't around much but when he was, we did things together."

  As he spoke, Bram felt something give way within him. Was it because he'd never before said anything good about his father?

  "My father doesn't do much with me," Davis said matter-of-factly. "'Cause I'm a poor athlete."

  Bram wasn't going to let it rest at that. "You mean in team sports."

  "Yeah."

  "I noticed you have a good sense of balance and I mentioned to your mother that I think you'd do well on skis. That's a sport you can do alone."

  Davis stared at him. "Skiing? You really think I'd do okay?"

  "Hey, good balance is half the battle."

  Davis's pleased expression rewarded him.

  As the evening slipped into night, Vala began posing riddles. Davis knew most of them, but she caught Bram on several. He dredged a few up from his younger years and finally caught her on one. They were laughing together when he noticed Davis's speculative gaze shifting from one to the other of them and wondered why. It made him uneasy.

  "The snakes must be asleep by now," Bram said abruptly. "Time for my father's tale."

  He told them about the wounded stranger the Ndee welcomed into their camp and how the old medicine man, Mokesh, meaning Yellow Eyes, cured him.

  "When enemy soldiers came for the stranger and demanded him, the Ndee refused to give up the man, even though warned that, as a result, a great enemy force would soon come through the
mountain pass and kill every man, woman and child of the Ndee."

  "Mokesh listened to the Great Spirit and understood what he must do to save his people. He would stand guard in the narrow pass and stop the enemy warriors."

  "The Ndee didn't see how he could stop more than one man, but when he looked at them with his yellow eyes, they believed him. And so, instead of fleeing, they remained in their camp, waiting and watching."

  Bram told how the enemy warriors laughed at the old man facing them with nothing more than a medicine rattle and a stick with two curved points at the tip.

  "But when they charged at Mokesh, the warriors fell back screaming in pain. Before their eyes he changed into a gigantic spirit snake with huge yellow eyes and two enormous fangs, a snake whose tail bore rattles. Many warriors died from the poisonous bite of Mokesh and the rest ran off, afraid of the Guardian of the Ndee."

  "Mokesh turned into a rattlesnake!" Davis exclaimed. "That's why he had yellow eyes to begin with, 'cause rattlers do. And that's why Mokesh means rattler, too."

  Bram nodded.

  "I bet old Mokesh knew that story. I wonder why he never told it to me?"

  "Maybe he didn't live long enough," Vala suggested. "He must have known many, many stories. More than he had time to tell you."

  Davis nodded. "Yeah, I guess. He told me once he chose stories I needed to hear. Maybe he even knew I'd come to the Superstitions with his map and meet Bram and hear the Mokesh story."

  "Who knows?" Bram said, expecting Vala to chime in with a reminder about reality.

  She didn't.

  "Now I know why Pauline told me to chant Mokesh's name if I met a rattler," Davis said. "Mokesh is really a Ndee spirit." He looked at Bram. "How come your father knew that story?"

  Bram shrugged.

  Davis opened his mouth, glanced at his mother, and closed it again. Bram hadn't seen her expression but he could visualize the quit-asking-personal-questions frown she'd given her son.

  Bram wasn't sure why he hadn't admitted the truth. Davis, he knew, would be pleased. And Vala? He'd been with her long enough to believe she wouldn't care one way or the other. So why hold back? Damned if he knew.

  "We all gonna sleep under the stars again tonight?" Davis asked. As soon as he said the words, he looked stricken. "Uh, maybe I won't," he added.

  "I'll share the tent with you," Vala said.

  Davis blinked and cast a glance at Bram.

  "Don't you want me to?" Vala asked her son.

  "Uh, I guess so."

  Bram wondered what the devil was bugging the kid.

  He hadn't behaved like this last night. Did it have anything to do with what Pauline had said to him this morning?

  "I'm hitting the sack," Davis told them and scurried off to the tent.

  "What's gotten into him?" Vala asked.

  "Beats me. It's just as well. Having you within arm's reach with Davis between us is a waste of moonlight."

  "I don't think the moon cares about your opinion. It'll shine anyway. But I agree that it's just as well you're sleeping by yourself in the moonlight."

  Bram was silent for a bit. "We'll spot the last marker tomorrow," he said finally. "The place marked with the X isn't far from that point. With luck our journey will be over."

  "And the treasure found."

  "You're still expecting something tangible?"

  Vala sighed. "I don't know what to expect. Davis needs something, some closure to this treasure hunt."

  Bram pushed back the words he wanted to say. What about us? We need closure as much as he does.

  "I guess I'll turn in." Vala started to stand up.

  He caught her arm and pulled her back down and into his arms. A goodnight kiss wasn't all he wanted but he intended to stop there.

  The kiss lasted longer than he meant it to. He'd thought he was long past the stage when a kiss could turn his world upside down. Wrong. It took a lot of willpower to end the embrace and let her go.

  Vala all but fled to the tent. If she'd stayed any longer in Bram's arms she didn't know what might have happened. She changed into her sweats and slid into the sleeping bag.

  "Mom?" Davis's voice was sleepy.

  "Yes, honey?"

  "I saw you and Bram kissing. That means you like each other?"

  "You could say that, yes. Why?"

  "I just wondered. I like him, too. He's way cool." Vala wasn't going to argue about that. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?" she asked, remembering her son's odd behavior earlier.

  "Uh, not right now, okay?"

  After they exchanged good nights, she lay awake listening to the rhythm of Davis's breathing change into the sleep mode. Then she heard a single coyote call. No answer came. Could it be searching for a mate? How sad if the coyote never found one.

  When she realized she was on verge of tears, she shook her head, telling herself she was being ridiculous. More than likely that lone coyote was the Trickster, looking for trouble.

  And just when had she dropped out of reality and began to believe in Apache--no, Ndee--legends? Would she never get that straight?

  Still, believe or not, on those days when everything went wrong for no particular reason, it was almost as though there were a trickster out there somewhere playing games. Strange what thoughts came into your head when you camped out in the wilderness. Probably because you had time to think rather than being constantly busy.

  Tomorrow they'd reach the end of their journey. After that was the trip back. Then the return flight to New York. This time she couldn't stop the tears.

  In the morning, Bram had barely crawled out of his sleeping bag before Davis, fully dressed, bounced from the tent. He gazed up at the sky, lightening toward dawn and said, "We're gonna find the treasure today."

  "How can you tell?" Bram asked.

  "We're almost there, aren't we?"

  Bram nodded. "But, at the moment, we're here, not there." He examined the sky and frowned. Though not completely overcast, he didn't like the look of what clouds there were.

  "Sometimes you sound like Pauline," Davis complained.

  "Thank you for the compliment. She's a wise woman."

  Davis looked momentarily confused and was silent for a bit. Finally he said, "I saw you and my mom kiss last night, so I asked her if she liked you and she said she did. You must like her, too. Otherwise you wouldn't kiss her."

  "Good logic, kid. If I didn't like her I wouldn't want to kiss her."

  Like wasn't the right word, but would have to do since he didn't have a substitute.

  "I told my mom I liked you, too," Davis went on.

  Bram grinned at him. "I never met a nine-year-old boy I liked better than you."

  Davis grinned back at him.

  "So now can we conclude the mutual admiration society and start making breakfast?" Bram asked.

  Davis chattered away about the treasure as he helped. "If it's gold, I'm gonna buy Mom a house. Houses are bigger than apartments and you can have lots of pets if you want and a big yard."

  "And if it isn't gold, then what?"

  "I guess that depends on what else it is."

  No disputing that logic. "Do you like living in New York?" Bram asked.

  "It's okay. I never lived anywhere else. I think the desert's kind of neat, though." Vala was emerging from the tent and, spotting her, Davis called, "Do you like the desert, Mom?"

  "I'd forgotten how wonderful it was," she said.

  Davis exchanged a look with Bram.

  "Your mother has this tendency to not quite answer a question," Bram told him. "The older you get, the more you'll discover most girls and women do the same thing. It's good you're getting a education in this early. You'll need it."

  "Mostly you can understand if you think about it," Davis said.

  "I agree. It's one of those things men just have to accept."

  "I hope you two are through talking about me as though I wasn't even on the same planet," Vala put in. "If we didn't have to get an early st
art, I'd list the problems women have with men."

  "So, okay, you do like the desert then, Mom?" Davis persisted.

  "Yes. How's that for a right-to-the-point answer? Why do you ask, anyway?"

  "I just wondered."

  After breakfast, the three of them acted as a team in cleaning up, repacking and saddling the horses. Watching as Vala pitched in and did her share, Bram decided it wouldn't take much to make her a real outdoors-woman.

  "So we're off to find the deer landmark," Vala said once they were mounted.

  "The trail seems pretty clear," Bram commented, glancing up at the sky again. "Should be an easy trip if the rain holds off."

  Vala looked up and frowned. "Those don't look like storm clouds."

  "They're not. Rain clouds."

  "No thunder and lightning?" Davis sounded disappointed.

  "Can't have everything."

  "Are we gonna have to stop and camp early if it rains a lot?" Davis asked.

  "Let's hope not", Bram said. "A little rain won't melt us. Neither will a lot, but a downpour makes for heavy going. I don't think we'll get that kind of rain today."

  "You know," Davis said, "I just remembered that Mokesh's eyes weren't all brown. His left eye had two chunks of sort of a golden-yellow in the brown. So he was named right."

  "We'll hope his map is right, too," Bram said.

  Then the trail narrowed and they had to go single file again.

  After finding the deer marker without much difficulty, they took a rest break. Before they started up again, Bram discovered the pack horse was definitely going lame. He checked all four hoofs but found nothing to account for the problem. The supplies were fewer than when they started so the horse was carrying an increasingly lighter load. In any case, Bram never overloaded the horses he used.

  "This'll slow us down," he said.

  As they remounted, a slow drizzle began which soon made the trail difficult for the horses. The rain made the humans equally miserable.

  "Maybe the spirits don't want us to get there," Davis said.

  "Reality check," Vala put in. "Legends that are a part of another culture aren't to be taken as absolutely true."

  "Aw, Mom, it's fun to imagine they might be watching us right now."