by Vella Munn
It is this writer's dream that Panther and Calida's children formed the core of those survivors, and that they were joined by Gaitor and Winter Rain's children.
Page forward for
SPIRIT OF THE EAGLE
The Soul Survivors Series
Book Two
Spirit of the Eagle
The Soul Survivors Series
Book Two
by
Vella Munn
Award-winning Author
SPIRT OF THE EAGLE
Reviews & Accolades
"A fast-paced multicultural western romance that will arouse fans of both genres. No one does Native American historical novels better than Vella Munn"
~Affaire de Coeur
"...a powerful, exciting read."
~Romantic Times
Acknowledgements
Without the timeless Modoc spirits which haunt the Land of Burned Out Fires, it would have been impossible for me to capture what I have of a unique culture and people. Yes, the National Park Service is responsible for preserving the Lava Beds of northern California and I am deeply grateful for their dedication to the past with its messages and lessons. I'm also indebted to the settlers, soldiers, reporters, and historians who documented their impressions of the war. Although the resultant books sometimes conflicted with each other, they gave me essential information. But it is the Modocs themselves who left behind the vital essence of their lifestyle, their understanding of the land, its seasons, and natural gifts. All I had to do was stand where they once stood and open my senses, my heart.
A special thanks goes to Gary Hathaway, acting Park Superintendent, for making his reverence for traditional Modoc culture come alive for me. His honesty about the Indians, army, and settlers has been invaluable.
Finally, I extend my own message of love to my husband, Dick, and my mother, Bonnie Palmer, for their willingness to explore and re-explore that wildly beautiful land with me. We learned lessons which will remain with us always.
"Once my people were like sand upon the shore. Now I call but only the wind answers."
~Old Schonchin, Modoc reservation chief
Chapter 1
December 21,1866
Northern California near Lost River, north of the Land of Burned Out Fires
The Modoc girl known as Teina sat huddled in the dark, staring at the dying coals from the fire that kept the winter storm from invading the small wickiup. The air on her naked body was no longer so hot that it made her sweat as it had when she went to bed, but she couldn't stir herself enough to reach for a deerhide blanket or her sagebrush bark dress. Nearby, her father snored.
Although she couldn't see the short, thickly built man, she easily imagined him sprawled on his back, arms outstretched, mouth open. He might reach for his wife, but tonight his possessive fingers would touch nothing.
Nena, Teina's mother, was gone.
A tule mat had been placed over the wickiup's roof opening as protection against snow and wind. If she added wood to the fire, the air would fill with smoke. Still, she wished she had something to do. Something to take her mind off her mother.
There was nothing.
Biting back tears, she repositioned her thin legs and turned her attention to the ladder that stretched to the opening. In her mind she saw her mother push aside the covering and descend. When she reached the ground, Nena would look around for her daughter and then, laughing a little in her excitement, tell her about the multitude of birds and other wildlife she'd seen while she was gone.
Only, tonight Nena wasn't out watching a long-legged crane pick its way through the swampy ground at the edge of Modoc Lake while hundreds of eagles patrolled the sky, their fierce cries seeming to echo against the distant mountains. Tonight Nena had gone out in a fierce storm because her husband had ordered her to go to the soldiers from Fort Klamath.
Unable to stop herself, Teina's hands tightened into helpless fists. She stared through the dark in the direction the snoring came from and imagined herself pummeling her father's face and chest, insisting he never again sell his wife to the soldiers.
But this wasn't the first time; she knew it wouldn't be the last.
A sound caught her attention, and despite the wind hitting what of the wickiup was above ground, she recognized approaching hoofbeats. Soldiers? Coming—coming for her? No! Although she'd seen twelve winters, her body was still that of a child, too small to accommodate a man.
Short moments later she relaxed. The horse was unshod and in that quiet time just before dawn, she knew it could only be her mother returning. She stood, waiting, needing her mother and yet unsure of what she would say to her. When the tule mat was pulled away, she saw first one leg and then another seek the log and fiber ladder. The wind howled; snow blew in through the opening. Her father snorted but didn't wake.
Nena was moving too slowly. Despite the sounds her father made, Teina heard her mother's labored breathing. Twice Nena sobbed softly and clung to the ladder as if too weak to continue. Stifling a cry of her own, Teina hurried over and helped guide her last few steps.
"Mother?"
"Home," Nena whispered and turned to embrace her daughter. Her arms and fingers felt frozen; snowflakes clung to her old elk cape. When Teina hugged back, Nena winced but didn't cry out.
"Mama, what is it?"
"They—fists—the soldiers..."
The soldiers had hurt her mother! Was it not enough that they used her body as if they had every right to it? Now they... they what?
"Don't go again, please!" The thought of what had happened between her mother and the soldiers was too much to bear. "Tell him—tell him you will no longer—"
"I cannot," Nena moaned and sank to her knees. Teina dropped beside her, cradling her mother's larger, heavier body.
Nena whispered, "I did as they said—spread my legs for them. Sickened on their whiskey breath. But they—"
Teina shut her mind to what her mother was saying; at least she tried to. But she wasn't a small child, living in her grandfather and great-grandfather's world. Her world had been invaded by the settlers and ranchers and soldiers who'd come to Modoc land—
"Wife? Where are the bullets?"
Teina was halfway to her feet before her mother grabbed her and pulled her back down beside her. "On the horse," Nena said. "I had—no strength."
"They paid as they said they would?"
"Yes."
"How many bullets?"
"I do not know." Nena's voice held an unaccustomed anger. "They forced me down, struck me. Laughed and hit and tried to make me drink their whiskey. I did not count the bullets, Wa'tcaq."
Teina watched her father's shadow come closer. "Hit?" he asked. "Did they have no use for you? You displeased them?"
"Stop it!" Teina gasped. "She is my mother! You cannot—I will not—"
She expected her father to slap her, knowing from past experience that there was no escaping his anger. The blow came so quickly that she didn't have time to duck. The side of her face flamed and her inner ear felt as if it might burst. She fought down a sob and continued to glare at him. "Do not raise your voice to me, Teina," he ordered. "I am your father."
And I hate you for it. "A father who trades his wife for weapons? Who forces her to—"
Wa'tcaq leaned down, not to strike her again but to yank her to her feet. She struggled, aware that her mother was trying to separate them but lacked the strength. "You are mine, Teina." His face was so close that her stomach lurched from his wretched breath. "My child and my responsibility and burden. You, my youngest, give me much grief."
Her father was no longer the man he'd been before strangers came to Modoc country and forced the People off the land that had been theirs since Kumookumts created it. "You sent her to them," she shot back. "They could have killed my mother, and you want me to remain silent? No!"
"Teina," her mother warned. "It is all right."
But it wasn't, and nothing her parents said would make her believe that. He
r older brother and sisters had still been children in spirit when they were her age, but their world had been simple. Hers wasn't; she sometimes felt as old as her toothless grandmother. Knowing the folly of trying to free herself from her father, she stopped struggling and stared at his bulky shadow while fighting her sense of helplessness. "You are not a man, a warrior!" she sobbed. "You do not hunt or fish. Instead you send my mother to—"
"Teina!" Her mother reached for her, then grabbed her side, gasping in pain. Fear lashed at Teina. She pulled away from her father's loosened grip. When her mother swayed, she helped her sit down.
"I cannot see what is wrong. The shaman. I will—"
"No shaman."
Because Wa'tcaq didn't want Cho-ocks to learn what he'd allowed to happen to his wife. Filled with that knowledge, Teina somehow supported her mother's weight until her father—cursing—threw branches on the coals so shadows no longer claimed the wickiup. Nena seemed more asleep than awake now, as weak as a small child. Teina ran her hands gently over her mother's body. When she reached her thighs, she felt dried blood.
Sickened, she whirled on her father. He stared down at her, and in the flickering, growing light, she could tell he was keeping his weight off the knotted knee that prevented him from following deer or antelope as he once had.
She opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, wishing with all her heart that she had her grandmother's wisdom. What she saw in his eyes stopped her. He was staring, not at her face, but at her breasts. Since they'd become more than tiny nubs against her flat chest, she'd covered herself in his presence, hoping to keep what she was becoming from him.
"What is this?" He indicated her breasts. "You are a child no more. A woman?" He stalked toward his wife. "Has she had her first bleeding? You have kept this from me? Why has there been no puberty dance?"
"She is a child!" Nena's voice was thick with fear. "No bleeding. Not yet ready for marriage."
"Marriage." Wa'tcaq's lips thinned. "Ready for a man."
"No!" Nena struggled to sit upright. "You send me to the soldiers. I do as you order. But my daughter—"
"My daughter too. She is skinny with long arms and legs; the soldiers like—"
"No!"
* * *
The hard winter wind blew with an anger that threatened to rip the sage and dried grass from the earth. Snow, spat from black clouds, whipped and whirled like prisoners unable to break free. With nothing but low, distant hills to challenge it, the wind rejoiced in its freedom, a monster determined to play and punish.
A monster born of Tctuk, the rock squirrel spirit who had stolen snow from Kumookumts and set it loose upon the earth.
Modoc Lake no longer fought the unrelenting gale. The water, and fish that lived in it, lay trapped under a thick layer of ice. The ice groaned and even screamed sometimes, sounds that seemed spawned by something buried deep underground.
Teina snugged her heavy elk blanket around her shoulders and neck, then dropped to her knees behind a thick, spreading chunk of sage, protecting as much of herself as possible from the storm that kept the rest of her people huddled in their brush and willow bough wickiups. Because they couldn't fish with most of the lake frozen, the ducks and geese who wintered here hugged the ground or hid behind lava rocks to escape the wind and waited for calmer days when they could feed on swamp grasses. Only the eagles didn't care; only they defied winter during their relentless search for food. Even now, a number of them floated overhead; even more were perched on rises that ringed the lake. The distant eagles, fierce and watchful, made her slightly uneasy. Still, she gave no thought to leaving.
She would rather freeze or be eaten by birds of prey than return to where she would have to see her mother's bruised and swollen face, where her father sat counting the white man's bullets. As she'd done since she was old enough to walk on her own and first heard its ageless call, she'd sought the wilderness. Solitude.
Where could she possibly go? Who might give her shelter? The great god Kumookumts had disappeared from the earth, leaving behind only his footprints. Frog was powerful but lived in the water, where Teina couldn't survive. The immortal snakes might let her join them, or she could dwell with bears that, it was said, had human intelligence. Or maybe Eagle.
Eagle, the bringer of good fortune, the namer of all other animals.
The wind hurtled through the brush, slicing into the girl like a hunting knife. Yet she remained huddled among boulders that had been here since the great underground fire spewed its anger and waste over the earth, long before the first Modoc drew breath. The lake, so wide that she couldn't see to the other side, was home and shelter to more water birds than she could count. Thousands upon thousands of ducks, egrets, geese, herons, and eagles were born and died here. Many followed their instinct south in the winter, but untold others stayed. When the storms came, they found shelter so they could fly and swim and fish and hunt another time.
Maybe, if she prayed hard enough to Kumookumts, the birds would take her to their nesting places. She would spend her life safe on the top of a sheer rock ledge or in an ancient mountain pine. Alongside the great eagles she loved and revered and feared, she'd wait for summer with its warm breezes and long, hot days. In those wonderfully quiet places, no soldiers' horses would trample the delicate white and yellow and red flowers that found life in the thin soil.
The thought lifted her lips, but her smile didn't last long. She might love eagles, but she had to live with those of her own kind. She had to understand why strangers had come to Modoc land and why the old ways were blowing away like autumn leaves.
The wind took a deep breath, pausing so briefly that maybe she'd imagined it. When it threw itself again against sky and earth, she shivered and turned her head so the shards of snow wouldn't sting her eyes. She blinked back tears born of cold and anger and, again, asked herself why her mother allowed her husband to treat her like goods to be bartered. Why her father sacrificed her to his greed.
It was the soldiers. The tribe elders spoke of a time before foolish strangers crouched over streams looking for rocks they called gold, before white settlers came with their fences and livestock, before nearby Fort Klamath had been built. Once, the land in all directions had belonged to the Modocs. The meadows, hills, creeks, and great lake truly had been the Smiles Of God. Sometimes the fierce Klamath Indians ventured close and the Modocs were forced to fight for what was theirs, but those battles had been fought with bows and arrows and spears, not rifles.
Then the miners and settlers came, with their powerful weapons. And the fort. And the soldiers. The Modocs had been forced off the rich land given to them by Kumookumts the creator because the settlers wanted the meadows and hills and water for themselves. Her people had been ordered to live shoulder to shoulder with the Klamaths by men who would never understand that the Klamaths and Modocs were like cougars and deer, different—enemies.
When the wind paused for another breath, Teina leaned close to the snaggled sage and tried to breathe in its scent, but the storm had forced its pungent smell back into the gray green leaves and dark bark. Still, she marveled that this ancient shrub flourished where nothing should grow. If many antelope and rabbits and deer made the lava beds on the other side of the lake their home and wocus grew abundantly, her people could live out their lives there, but it was too desolate. Even when there was no storm, only a few songbirds and mountain sheep survived.
Only the birds and sheep and, maybe, someone who was not yet a woman but no longer a child.
Her legs cramped and she shifted her weight. Her knee landed on a sharp rock, and it was several seconds before she found a comfortable place to kneel. When she again looked out at the lake, she saw that a mist had begun to form over its frozen surface. Despite the wind, a dense, swirling cloud shape clung to the lake like snow on sacred Mount Shasta, only darker. Much, much darker. She could no longer see the eagles that guarded it.
Mist brought peace. She had always felt comforted by its cool, qu
iet blanket. The world slowed down then, lost its harsh edges. She would stand with water droplets on her face and in her hair and wonder if this was what it felt like to be a bear or squirrel in its winter sleep. Sometimes the fog's cold was so intense that she was forced inside, but even then, she felt the massive shroud just beyond her reach, waiting to envelope her with silence.
Maybe she could live in the mist. Then she shook her head at the idea of burrowing deep inside what had no substance, still staring at what the soldiers and settlers had named Tule Lake.
She wanted the newcomers gone, wanted the fog to swallow every pale skin and keep them there until the end of time. Maybe, she thought with a small laugh, the fog would force them deep into the earth where the great fire burned.
Fire. She held her numb fingers to her mouth and blew, but her breath did little to warm them. She wasn't a duck or an eagle, kept warm by its blanket of feathers. If she didn't leave soon, she would freeze.
But where could she go?
The answer, maybe an answer, came as if it had been waiting for her in the storm and fog. Chief Kientpoos, her mother's brother, had given her the elk blanket she now wore. He'd noticed that her father hadn't prepared her for the coming winter.
One day last summer she'd been standing in waist-deep water watching tiny fish nibbling her toes while Kientpoos and the other braves fastened seines across the bows of their canoes so they could paddle about until the nets were full of fish. Just as they were getting ready to set out, a rifle blast caught everyone's attention. A moment later, a large doe burst into view and plunged into the lake. As they watched, the doe headed at an angle away from them, swimming powerfully. By the time the soldier who'd shot at the doe arrived, the creature was out of range. Still, the sweating, bearded man reloaded and fired again before slamming his heavy rifle to the ground.
