Geoffrey’s gaze skimmed over the crowd of dark heads that moved toward them with raised arms and shouts of joy. There were plenty of women coming to meet him and Hugo with expectant looks, but not one of them belonged to him. He spotted her toward the back, standing apart from the others with a soft smile as she wrapped her striped blanket about her shoulders.
He blindly handed the reins of his horse to his brother and edged through the natives to meet her. Geoffrey had been all over the known world, and traveled through parts that had yet to be trodden by Europeans. But not one face could capture him as hers did.
When they first met, even his inner wolf salivated for the chance to claim her for his own. They came to, what they learned to be called, the Navajo Territory a decade ago, continuing their search for myths and legends about their own kind. Many of the native tribes they encountered had a shapeshifting story, some related to wolves and other animals like crows and coyotes. Geoffrey and Hugo hadn’t expected to stay in the Navajo Territory, not when the promise of further exploration drifted from further south. The Spanish and Mexican colonies were sure to have their own brand of legends mingled in with the native folktales, but Asdzáá Yanaha changed all that.
It was difficult to form the sounds of their unique language at first, so Geoffrey gave her another name. Rebecca. It was reserved just for him, in the same way that she called him Hastiin Bitsii’ Łitso because of his blonde hair. After they learned to speak one another’s language, communication became much easier – as did other things.
Many of the native tribes they encountered warmly received Geoffrey and Hugo into their villages, eager to share their way of life, so different than what they were familiar with. They learned typical trading customs, languages, and varying cultures that seemed to be so in tune with the natural world. Hugo had once remarked that his wolf never felt more at ease than it did amongst the tribespeople, especially when they sang their haunting chants. Geoffrey felt it too, which was why when Adam came along, it was a simple decision to stay with the Navajo. For now.
Geoffrey watched as a stray strand of dark hair came loose from Rebecca’s tight bun and fell across her face. When she made no move to tuck it behind her ear, he did it for her.
“You look well,” he said softly in English, smiling down at her and wishing they could retreat back to the hogan for some privacy.
Rebecca nodded. “You too,” she replied, his own sentiments mirrored in her dark eyes. “Adam has missed you.”
“I hope someone else in the village missed me too,” he remarked, taking a tiny step closer so he could hear the way their heartbeats became one.
Rebecca slid a glance toward the group of villagers collecting the new goods as Hugo distributed them. “Skipping Woman asked almost every day when you’d return. She wanted more beads for the necklace she’s making for her daughter.”
Geoffrey couldn’t contain himself any longer and guided her chin back toward him so she could receive his kiss. They had been together for so long, but the scent of her raw arousal never grew old. Despite what she so obviously felt, she pulled away and giggled like the young woman he had met ten years ago.
“What’s this I hear about the boys calling Adam a name?” he asked as they began to make their way into the village, walking past the other hogans with their wisps of campfire smoke curling upwards through the hole in the earthen roofs.
“It’s just a season,” she sighed. “The boys will find something else to amuse themselves and they’ll call him a different name.”
Geoffrey nodded, though the prospect of his son being ridiculed in such a way unsettled him. “Believe it or not, I was a boy once too. I remember being teased and bullied. I just want Adam to have the best childhood that he can.”
Rebecca slid a glance his way. “Until you take him from me.”
For the sake of not repeating Hugo’s mistake, Geoffrey was completely honest with Rebecca from the beginning, even before Adam was born. He told her all about werewolves and how they were not the same thing as the yeahnáglóshii – the skinwalker – that was considered an evil shapeshifter in the Navajo culture. Once she saw his golden eyes and watched him shift for the first time, Rebecca seemed rather accepting of him and Hugo. The rest of the village didn’t know and they wanted to keep it that way.
However, when Adam was born, Geoffrey told her about what would happen when he came of age. It’d be too dangerous to keep him in the village, and they both agreed that taking him away for his training would be best for everyone. That didn’t mean she had to like it.
“You still have several more years with him,” Geoffrey encouraged as he hung his arm around her shoulders to draw her closer.
“You must promise that you’ll come back with him before I die.”
It was such a morbid thought for a woman still in her prime, but Geoffrey wouldn’t allow himself to be naïve. Rebecca was human and would pass away some day. Geoffrey, Hugo, and Adam would not. Geoffrey would look as young as he did now by the time they left the village for the last time. Rebecca’s beautiful face however, would boast a few wrinkles and her body wouldn’t be so lithe and supple between his arms. He knew when he fell in love with her that it wouldn’t last forever, however much he wished it could.
“I promise I will bring him back to you,” he said as they ducked into the cool air of the hogan they shared. “I see you’ve been working hard on something beautiful,” he remarked in regard to the stunning blanket stretched on the loom.
Rebecca turned to him. “That reminds me. What was this special gift you were hoping to trade? If you wasted a trade on some silly beads or jewelry…”
Geoffrey kissed her cheek, admiring how she was never in want of anything but his company. “No, nothing like that. I got Adam a horse.”
Her eyes went wide. “You didn’t!”
“What’s wrong with getting the boy a horse?” Geoffrey laughed at her startled expression. “Every boy needs a horse.”
Rebecca unwrapped her blanket from around her shoulders. “I will never see that boy again,” she fumed as she folded the thick cloth. “He’ll be out all day, riding about while I need him to tend after the sheep or collect water. What is that word you use… Spoil? You spoil that child.”
Geoffrey only shrugged. “That’s what a father should do.”
Her lips that were puckered into a stern pout, melted into a grin again and she shook her head ruefully. “Making up for what you didn’t have, I assume?”
That was another thing that he made perfectly clear with Rebecca when Adam was born. Geoffrey knew little about what it meant to be a father, much less a successful one. He loved the boy just as much as he loved Rebecca, but even after eight years, he still fumbled through the hard lessons.
Geoffrey’s father wasn’t around to teach them the things they needed to learn. When he abandoned him and Hugo with their heartbroken mother, he left without a word or any hint as to what would happen to them when they became men. Geoffrey wouldn’t allow that to happen with Adam. And if that involved spoiling him with gifts along the way, he’d do it gladly.
He kissed her again instead of replying to her question and moved toward the doorway. “I need to go help Hugo take care of the horses before it gets too dark.”
Rebecca placed a delicate hand upon his arm. “Will you be home tonight, or…” She gave him a look, the one that reminded him of how she knew him all too well. It might have been something in the way he stood, or a subtle look in his eyes. Either way, she could always tell when it was his time of the month to change.
Geoffrey let out a breath and shook his head. “I won’t be sleeping with you tonight,” he said. “I’ll stay as long as I can for the evening meal, but then I have to go.”
Looking not the least bit distressed by his answer, she nodded. “Just be careful,” she warned before giving him one last kiss and turning away to the loom. There wasn’t much light to see by, and she began to put away her supplies so she could continue the next d
ay.
Geoffrey gave her one more appraising look and then left the hogan. It had been several decades since they first stepped onto this new, unexplored continent, but it all passed by too quickly. If only the next years he had left with Rebecca and the Navajo could pass just a little more slowly, then maybe he’d be content.
But as long as the reality of their shortened stay loomed over them, Geoffrey couldn’t allow himself to be as blissfully happy as he would like. If only there was some way to keep Rebecca a little longer, to keep the ravages of time from touching her beautiful soul. To stave off death itself from seizing her spirit before he had a chance to fully appreciate it through centuries of being with her. Then, he could ignore that dull ache in his throat as he walked away from their hogan.
The rhythmic voices of the villagers swirled around Adam’s head, coupled with the thumping of the drums. The beating feet of the dancers around the campfire kept time with the eternal heartbeat of the earth, matching his own. With his eyes closed, he could appreciate it all the more. He could feel that familiar, serene cadence thrumming through the ground he sat on.
Beside him, his father talked and laughed with the elders of the village, telling them all about his journey to the Ute villages. On his other side, his mother whispered softly with his uncle about something he couldn’t make out over the constant pulse of music. He didn’t care what they were saying. Just knowing they were there was enough.
Adam treasured these moments when his family joined together for meals. Dusk settled in, bringing the stars and moon to alight the dark blue sky. Not a single cloud marred the beautiful night to come.
“Hey, Adam!” cried one of the boys dancing around the campfire.
He looked up and saw several of the village boys waving him over, inviting him to dance with them aside the older men. Eagerly, he clamored to his feet and joined them. Mimicking the stomps and hops of the men, Adam danced with them, rejoicing in the blessings they had been given by the Holy People. His father didn’t care much for the Diné faith, but his mother cared deeply, so Adam did too.
Sometime in the festivities, Adam looked up to where his parents were sitting, only to find his father had left. He stumbled in his steps and looked all around for Geoffrey’s golden hair. He was far from the campfire, walking to the west where the mountains skirted their isolated village in the valley.
He stopped and ran after him. “Where are you going?” Adam asked once he finally caught up with his father. Geoffrey’s expression seemed tight, pinched as if he were in pain. “Are you sick?”
His father shook his head. “No, not sick. Please go back to your mother,” he said, placing a shaking hand upon Adam’s shoulder. “I’m fine. I just have somewhere I need to go.”
Worry sparked in his chest, the first bit of distress he had felt since earlier that day when he was afraid that Geoffrey and Hugo wouldn’t return before sundown.
“Can I come with you?” he asked, ignoring the way his father winced and squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second.
“No, son. Please, go back to the village. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Adam stood, perplexed as to why his father wouldn’t let him come along. Geoffrey continued on his path toward the mountains, fading in with the milky darkness just beyond the campfire light.
He bit his lips together, debating whether to obey his father and go back, or follow in secret. He had never denied Adam before. Usually it was his mother who said that he couldn’t go with Geoffrey when he went to trade with other villages, though the two men would have loved to have taken Adam with them. What could he have been doing that was so secretive that he couldn’t let his son come?
Adam waited a little longer, standing just on the edge of the light, before he followed in his father’s footsteps. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight, but he soon found Geoffrey’s tracks that wound through the brush and down a mountain path. It led toward a river where the village collected its water, but there were no other villages for at least a day’s travel beyond that.
The sound of the drums faded away, and the air was anything but still that night. He could hear the rustling of desert rabbits and mice in the brush, the chirping of crickets, and in the distance, the wailing of a coyote echoed from atop one of the flat mountains.
Soon, the trail went cold. Either it was too dark to see Geoffrey’s heavy footprints in the earth, or Adam had been following the wrong tracks from the beginning. He liked to brag that he could track just as well as any of the other men of the village, but his mother liked to remind him that being humble about one’s own skills was more important than bragging.
Just when he was ready to turn back, he heard the babbling of the river just beyond the ridge. With aching effort, he climbed up, thinking he could at least get a drink of water before heading back to the village.
When he peeked over the side, he saw that he wasn’t the only one interested in a drink from the stream. His father crouched down by the river’s edge, his shirt and pants tossed to the side to leave him naked in the silvery moonlight. Adam opened his mouth to call out, but he paused when he saw what his father was doing. He wasn’t simply squatting by the river, but seemed to be bracing himself against a boulder on its shore.
There came a scraping sound, similar to what he heard when one of the hunters in the village sharpened his knife blade. It took a second for him to realize that his father wasn’t sharpening anything. It was his nails that made this gritty, grating noise against the rock.
Adam watched as Geoffrey’s back rose and fell with deep, painful breaths. Then, the skin that appeared milky white in the moonlight, slowly turned dark, blending in with the night. His father let out a deep groan and Adam gasped at each sickening pop of joints and bones cracking under some invisible force.
He stared, eyes wide with terror as he saw his father turn into a furry beast. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, neither man nor animal, but a mix of both. A legend came to mind, a creature the elders spoke of often. A yeahnáglóshii, one who walks on all fours.
A skinwalker.
Trembling, he took a deep breath to shout, but a hand stifled any sound he might have tried to make. Adam was pulled down from the ledge and out of sight from the evil beast his father had become. Even in the shadows, he could make out the face of his uncle. Hugo wasn’t afraid. In fact, he looked angry. Had he followed Adam all the way from the village? Did he know that Geoffrey was a skinwalker?
Adam struggled against his uncle, but Hugo’s hand stayed tight over his lips.
“Calm down, boy,” he said. “Your father is all right.”
If it were possible for his eyes to open any wider, they might have fallen out of his head.
“Yes,” Hugo continued. “He’s just fine. This is perfectly normal, okay?”
Adam finally managed to force his uncle away and stared in disbelief. “Normal? He’s a skinwalker,” he replied in a whisper, mindful that death and sickness came to whoever crossed paths with a creature like the skinwalker.
Hugo shook his head. “He’s not a skinwalker. Take another look, but be quiet.”
Adam didn’t want to look again. If he met the eyes of a skinwalker, he could become ill and die. He was too young to die, too young to lose his father to such evil. The elders said that skinwalkers could lurk amongst the Diné without ever being recognized for what they were, but he never thought his father could be capable of such atrocities. Who did he have to kill to earn the gifts of the skinwalker? The elders said a man must commit a sin as great as killing a loved one to become a skinwalker. Was that why Geoffrey and Hugo had traveled such a long way from their own homeland? Because he killed someone? How could his mother keep such a secret from him?
Unless she didn’t know.
Instead of taking a look over the ridge, Adam jumped to his feet and hurried back toward the village. Hugo called after him, but didn’t give chase. His heart hammering hard in his chest, Adam ran as fast as he could,
faster than he ever had before. Hot tears spilled down his dusty face as he thought of all the good things his father had done for him. All lies.
The sound of the drums welcomed him to safety and he dashed straight to his mother who was still sitting by the fire, oblivious to the dangerous thing she had married.
His mother looked up as he skidded to a stop. “Adam, what’s wrong? You look ill.”
Had he seen too much of the skinwalker by the river? Adam didn’t feel sick, not really. His stomach churned and lurched as he kept the image of his father’s transformation fresh in his mind, but he didn’t feel truly sick.
“It’s father,” Adam said breathlessly. “Something’s happened and – “
His mother quickly shushed him with a shaking hand and ushered him away from the rest. He must have been drawing too much attention to himself, but Adam didn’t care. The others should know too. They needed to cast Geoffrey and Hugo out of the village as soon as possible.
Adam blanched when he thought that his own uncle might have been a skinwalker too. Why else would he say that it was normal for a man to turn into a beast like that?
They arrived back to their hogan, and only then did Adam let his lips loosen to tell the whole story. His mother listened patiently, but she didn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as Adam. She didn’t even frown when he went into detail about how his father grew fur and claws like an animal.
When he was finished, his mother pulled him into her arms and hugged him tight. He buried his face in her shoulder and let the tears fall once more, too frightened to think what his life would be like without his father around anymore.
“Adam, your uncle wasn’t lying,” she said with such a soothing voice that he was tempted to believe her. “This is normal for your father. Once a month, he has to leave the village to change.”
He pulled away and stared up into his mother’s peaceful face. “You knew he was a skinwalker?”
The Native (A Legacy Series Novella) (The Legacy Series Book 6) Page 2
