by T. Isilwath
The soldier’s eyes opened wide and he gulped a little, smiling nervously, and she decided to let him off the hook. Slapping him jovially on the forearm, she rose to her feet.
“C’mon. We should head back before they send someone looking for us.” The young man stood and followed her as she headed for the Jeep they had come in. “But it’s only 1800 hours. We don’t have to be back until 2000 hours.”
“I know, but I’m tired, and I have a long trip tomorrow.”
“Alright then, I’ll take you back, ma’am.”
She gave him a grateful smile and waited while he opened the door for her.
Then she got into the Jeep and they headed back to the base.
A member of the military police roused her at 0500 hours, and escorted her to the tarmac where she was put on a plane bound for San Diego. Her guard went with her and sat in the aisle seat while she sat in the window seat. The plane appeared to be full of servicemen returning from leave in Honolulu, but since her escort did not seem to be the talkative type, she didn’t bother to ask. His stoic silence was refreshing, actually, because it meant that she did not have to answer any uncomfortable questions.
Her layover in San Diego was an uneventful two-and-a-half hours where she was officially welcomed back to the mainland United States, given a passable lunch and a changing of the guard. Her new escort was a woman, slightly friendlier then the man who had come from Honolulu with her, but still did not seem inclined to engage her in any idle chat. She did, however, enquire as to her medical condition and her blood glucose levels, giving Joanna a hint that her guard had been briefed about her diabetes. Since her blood sugar levels had been within the acceptable ranges for several days, she could happily report that everything was fine.
Four and a half hours later, her guard handed her off to a middle-aged man in army dress uniform who smiled at her and shook her hand firmly.
“Welcome to Fort Bragg, Miss Tindall. We’re glad to have you home. I’m Colonel Pyle. I’ll be overseeing your visit here.” She gave him the same wan smile she’d given his counterpart back in Japan and met his eyes. “I’m very glad to be back, sir. I’ve been informed that I’ll be your guest here for a few days.”
“Yes. Our medical staff wants to give you a final going over, and there are a few people who want to meet with you before we send you home.”
“I understand. Will I be permitted to call my grandmother and my fiancé to let them know that I am back in North Carolina?”
“Of course, Miss Tindall. As soon as we have you settled into your guest quarters you’ll have access to a telephone. You may call anyone you wish from there.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
She was presented to a tall soldier of Native American descent. He looked Navajo, but she couldn’t be certain. He smiled at her and nodded his head.
“This is Private Begay. He’ll take you to your quarters. It’s my understanding that your luggage has already been delivered,” Colonel Pyle informed her.
She smiled a genuine smile. All of her things had been confiscated once they came through the Gate, and she hadn’t seen most of it since. She’d been allowed to have essentials like her toiletries and some clothes, but everything else had been held for “inspection and decontamination,” including Iris.
“I’m glad to hear that. I’m particularly concerned about my guitar. I haven’t seen her since I left Japan.”
“To the best of my knowledge your instrument arrived safely.” She didn’t know how much he’d been told, or how much she should reveal, but Akihiro’s playfulness had rubbed off on her so she couldn’t resist a slight jibe. “I’m so relieved. Although after what I’ve just been through, having my luggage accidentally sent to Guam would have been an improvement.” The colonel laughed nervously, his eyebrows raising ever so slightly, but since she hadn’t really given anything away, there wasn’t much he could object to. Private Begay grinned and motioned for her to follow him.
“If you’ll come with me, Miss Tindall, I’ll take you to your room.”
“Lead the way, Soldier, I’m right behind you.”
The young man gave her another nod and began walking away. She fell in just slightly behind his left shoulder and kept pace with his quick step.
“Begay… that’s a Dineh surname. Are you Navajo?” she questioned.
“Yes. Many Hogans Clan. Grew up outside of Window Rock, Arizona. Are you of the People?”
“Cherokee. Half, actually. Long Hair Clan, but my fiancé is full-blood, Paint Clan.”
Private Begay nodded that he understood. “Did you grow up in Oklahoma?”
“No. I lived with my family in California until I was thirteen, then I moved to North Carolina to live with my grandmother.”
“Went to learn of your heritage?” he asked innocently with a bit of pride.
“No. My family was on Flight 175 from Boston. It crashed into the South Tower on September 11, 2001,” she answered soberly.
“Oh.”
Her simple statement ceased all further conversation until they arrived at a sparsely furnished room with an attached bathroom. As Colonel Pyle had informed her, her luggage and Iris were already there, sitting by the bed.
‘So this is to be my cell until they let me out of here,’ she thought dourly.
“Here you are, Miss Tindall. Dinner is at 1900 hours. I’ll come to escort you to the dining room. Do you need any help unpacking?” She shook her head, feeling slightly guilty for being so blunt earlier. “No, but thank you for offering.”
“Very well. I will see you at 1900 hours then.”
She looked at her watch. It was just past 5:30. She had under an hour to wash and dress. “Thanks. I’ll shower and change, and be ready by 1830 hours.” He nodded and took his leave. After he was gone, she took a shower to wash away the invisible layer of grime that always accumulated on her when she was traveling. The hot water was a guilty pleasure that she had sorely missed during her time in Japan. Hot springs were nice for soaking, but nothing beat the decadence of a long, hot shower.
Afterwards, she dried her hair and selected a plain, navy blue dress from the clothing she had been allowed to keep with her. She’d never worn the dress in Japan because it had never seemed appropriate, but now she wondered if Akihiro would have liked it. She slipped on the dress, put on a smattering of make-up, and was ready by the appointed time. Private Begay came to get her at exactly 1900 hours and took her down to a small dining room on the first floor. The room was separate from the building’s mess hall, and seemed to be reserved for officers and their wives if the people in the room were any indication.
She was seated at a table with Colonel Pyle, two women she did not know, and a civilian man with shoulder-length black hair and dark, piercing eyes. He looked at her with an expression so bland and neutral that it tripped off all of her warning alarms, and she would have been wary of him even if she hadn’t seen Private Begay make a quick gesture meant to ward off evil. She didn’t have any time to question the young Navajo, however, because he made a hasty exit as she was introduced to the other members of the party.
“Ah, Miss Tindall. Please sit down. I trust that you are finding things to your satisfaction?” Colonel Pyle greeted, offering her the chair on his left.
“Yes, thank you.” There was no sense in pointing out that she was fully aware of her near-prisoner status.
“Allow me to introduce you to my wife, Ann, Ms. Lynn Tayton from the Department of Homeland Security, and Signor Sebastiano Neramorte, special consultant to DHS and the NSA.”
‘Neramorte… Black Death… No wonder Private Begay is nervous around him,’ she thought, recognizing the Italian root words.
“A pleasure to meet all of you,” she replied, sitting down. Signor Neramorte’s gaze locked onto her and made her feel as if he was skinning her alive with his eyes.
“The pleasure is all ours, Miss. Tindall, I assure you,” he said, smiling in a way that made her shiver. His smooth voice was
accented, confirming that he was Italian.
No matter how well dressed or how polite he seemed to be, she instinctively did not like him, and that made the meal all the more awkward. She survived it, however, and dodged the thinly veiled attempts to draw her into conversation regarding sensitive subjects. Anglo’s penchant for idle chatter annoyed her because, as a general rule, Cherokees did not engage in gossip, and she had no patience for ennui, especially now when she saw them as little more than jailers.
After dinner Private Begay was waiting for her outside the dining room.
He nodded to her as she said her goodbyes, and watched Signor Neramorte with an expression of guarded fear. Once they were out of sight of Colonel Pyle and his guests, he turned to her and pressed a small cloth bag into her palm.
“Here, Ms. Tindall.”
“What is it?” she asked, raising the black fabric to her nose to sniff it. It smelled heavily of herbs.
“It is to ward off evil. That man, Neramorte. He is a dangerous man; a witch. This charm will protect you. It has powerful Medicine.” It didn’t surprise her. Navajos were a famously superstitious people, but she was glad of the gift. She had no idea if it would truly protect her, but hopefully Mr. Black Death wouldn’t like the smell.
“Thank you, Private Begay.”
“Be careful, Ms. Tindall. Be very wary of him.”
“I will,” she promised, and he seemed satisfied.
They arrived at her room a short time later, and he bid her goodnight with a promise that he would come to get her for breakfast in the morning. Once he was gone, she unpacked her things and inspected them. Everything was there except for her weapons: the bow, the two daggers and her hunting knife, and, while she was angry that they had taken them, she wasn’t all that surprised. It was possible that they would be returned to her when they released her to go home. At the very least, she wanted her hunting knife back.
As soon as she was done looking over her things, she picked up the phone in her room and dialed for an outside line. Then she punched in Elisi’s number and waited for her grandmother to answer.
“Siyo,” Elisi’s voice came across the line four rings later, speaking the Tsalagi word for “hello.”
She still wasn’t used to hearing the old woman’s voice again, and it made her heart beat a little faster in her chest. The first time she had talked to Michael, she’d almost fainted.
“Elisi,” she began. “It’s Joanna.”
“Joanna? It is so good to hear your voice! Where are you? You sound so close,” her grandmother replied, her joy evident.
“That’s because I am close, Elisi. I’m at Fort Bragg.”
“Fort Bragg? Yes, you are nearly home. We knew you would be coming back soon. When did you arrive there?”
“Just today. I’m not sure how long they are going to keep me. There are more tests and meetings I have to go through before they will let me go.”
“Yes. That is what the man told Michael when he called. He has called every day since your phone call from Japan, demanding to know when you will be home. I fear he has made some enemies in high places,” her grandmother informed her with only mild concern.
She laughed. “I doubt he cares.”
Elisi laughed as well, and she had to smile at the sound even though she knew the old woman couldn’t see her.
“No, I doubt he does. You know how he is. Once he knew you had been found, he has called them every day. They are very tired of hearing his voice, I think.”
“Is he there with you now?”
“No, Child. He was here earlier, but he had to leave. He did not say where he was going.”
“That’s okay. I’ll try him on his cell phone. If I can remember the number.
The battery in my cell’s been dead for months,” she joked, only half kidding.
“Yes. We knew you would have called us if you could.” The statement was leading, as if her grandmother was hoping that she would provide additional information. It put her in a very uncomfortable position because she wouldn’t lie to Elisi under any circumstances.
“No. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to contact anyone. Neither my cell nor my laptop was working. My laptop’s broken actually. I’ll have to see if it can be fixed, but I doubt it.” There, what she had said was 100% true without revealing any sensitive details that someone might find objectionable.
“I am sure that everything will be all right,” her grandmother assured her.
“Yes, I know. It’ll all work out. Anyway, I need to call Michael. I’ll try to call again tomorrow or the day after. Hopefully I’ll have a better idea about how long I’ll be here by then.”
“Yes, Child. Thank you for calling. We are all looking forward to having you back with us.”
“I’m looking forward to being back,” she wholeheartedly agreed. “I’ll talk to you soon. Take care. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Child.”
“Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
She hung up and immediately dialed Michael’s cell phone number, but she got his voicemail. She left a brief message for him, but she didn’t tell him where she was. Knowing him, he’d drive all the way to Fort Bragg and get himself arrested trying to break in. As it was, she wouldn’t put it past him to try anyway once he talked to Elisi and found out she was back in the States.
When she was finished her call, she sighed heavily and sat down on the bed. Hearing Michael’s voice, and knowing he was so close, was bittersweet.
When she had been trapped in Feudal Japan it had been easy to promise Akihiro that she would be there for him, but now that she was back home, it wasn’t so simple. She had forgotten what it was like to love Michael, but all of that had come back the moment she had heard his voice.
There were reasons why they had been together for so long. They were a good match, and Michael’s love for her had always been absolute. Now she felt almost guilty for forsaking him so easily, but that only made her feel guilty for breaking her promise to Akihiro; which made her feel guilty for making the promise in the first place… and so on. It was a never-ending cycle of recrimination and self-loathing, and she didn’t know how she was going to resolve it.
She loved Michael. She loved Akihiro. She hadn’t known it was possible to love two men so much, and the fear of having to choose between them weighed heavily on her. Of course the entire argument would be moot if Akihiro hadn’t managed to live the interim 400+ years, and so far she had seen no sign suggesting that he was still alive. Then again, she was still in the Army’s clutches, so it was possible that he couldn’t come to her.
She didn’t know what she was going to do, and the uncertainty was making her physically ill. She looked over at the small carry-on bag she had been given by the staff at Yokosuka hospital. Inside were the three medicine bottles that held the drugs she had been prescribed. It would be so easy to take one of the
“anti-depressants” and a sleeping pill to make all of her anxiety and sorrow go away. All she would have to do was open the bag, take out the vials of pills, down one or two, and peaceful oblivion would be hers in a very short time.
So easy…
She fought the urge. Drugging herself was not the answer. It wouldn’t get her out of the mess she was in, and it certainly wouldn’t make the situation any better. She might take the sleeping pill, though, just to make sure she was well rested for whatever they had in store for her tomorrow. If she took it now, it would be almost completely worn off by the time Private Begay came to fetch her. Decision made, she reached for the bag and pulled out the vial of sleeping pills. She twisted open the cap, took out one pill, snapped it in half because she didn’t want to be too sedated, and took it with a cup of water. She was asleep within twenty minutes.
Morning dawned too soon and she met it with bleary eyes. She couldn’t remember sleeping poorly, but it certainly felt that way. She also had vague memories of disturbing dreams, but she couldn’t quite recall them. She woke up rattled and uneasy; e
xactly what she hoped not to be when they came for her. Private Begay knocked on her door at exactly 0600 hours and escorted her to the communal dining room. This time he stayed with her, and they ate breakfast together while he detailed the schedule for the day. She didn’t have any medical tests (although she was to meet with someone about her follow-up care), but she did have meetings with people from the DOD and DHS, neither of which she was looking forward to.
After breakfast Private Begay took her to meet with a nurse at the Womack Army Medical Center. There her appointments for Duke University Eye Center and Cherokee Indian Hospital were set and confirmed. Her results from Yokosuka were being transferred to her primary doctor back home, and any further tests would be ordered by him. She guessed that they would do frequent diagnostics to check her kidney function and neuropathy once they were finished evaluating her condition.
Her eyes were the worst by far, and she feared that any retinal surgery she underwent now wouldn’t correct the vision loss she had already suffered. She knew very well how horrible diabetic retinopathy could be, and how it couldsteal eyesight until the victim was almost completely blind. Of all the things she feared the most, losing her vision was at the top of the list, and she was terrified that her eyesight would continue to deteriorate. As far as she was concerned, her appointment at Duke couldn’t come fast enough.
When her meeting with Nurse Mackey was over, Private Begay drove her from Womack back to the complex she had come from and took her into a small conference room. Waiting for her in the room were Colonel Pyle, Ms.
Tayton from DHS, two men in suits that she guessed were from the DOD, and Signor Neramorte who was sitting in a chair off by himself. He looked very self-contained in an immaculate black tailored suit with one leg crossed casually over the other as he surveyed the room from his vantage point. She saw Private Begay clench his jaw when the Italian’s eyes fell on them, and she regretted leaving the charm the young Navajo had made her behind in her room.
