by Brian Hodge
Jess lurched to the right, vomited again, wiping it from his chin and grappling with the weeds again. He was frantic now, moving like a madman, ripping and tearing at the grass and the soil. It took only a moment more to find Mabel.
She’d fallen into the plants to his left, and they had covered her completely. If you didn’t know she was there, you’d walk right by. Jess fell to his knees at her side, sliding a hand under the plants to her throat. She had a pulse. It was strong and steady, but she was out.
Jess looked up again. The wreckage of the plane smoldered, black clouds billowing skyward. He had a hard time concentrating, but he knew that there was something else – something important – that he was missing. He turned in a slow circle. Back toward the swamp, he saw flashing lights. Blue and white lights. Very bright, far away, and as they came into focus he heard the sirens.
“Shit,” he breathed softly. Clarity was swift and complete. Shadowy forms moved in the distance, but they remained in the distances. So far, no one was moving their way. There was time.
Jess moved quickly. He didn’t know why, but he knew that he had to get busy, or things were going to get bad. Hell, they were already bad, worse than they’d ever been. Except they weren’t.
Something had changed. Not just the night. Not just the flashing lights or the eerie distant wail of sirens. Not the flaming husk of a Cessna buried nose-first in the pot field. Not even the voice of the road, drowned out by a thousand discordant cries and pops, crackles and hisses. Not even the blood soaking the ground that had once swayed back and forth in time to Teeter’s inner rhythm, or the forever imbedded image of Slug, eyes closed in bliss, licking chemicals off the back of an angry beetle.
He couldn’t say what it was, only that it mattered. He ripped out several large handfuls of leaves from the remaining plants. He made a pile of it, a mound about two feet tall and the same width. He heard voices shouting now, and he thought they were coming from the direction of The Swamp. Jess stripped off his t-shirt, tied the arms together and quickly stuffed the leaves he’d gathered inside. When it was as full as he could get it, he tied the other end closed.
He carried it to where Mabel lay still on the ground and he knelt at her side. Very gently, he lifted her head. The chemicals sang through his veins. He felt as if he were vibrating, caught in the wind like a tuning fork. Everything was too bright. Sounds were too loud. The feel of Mabel’s hair as he lifted her from the soft earth made his arm tingle, and he nearly laughed as the sensation brought an instant hard on.
“Christ,” he muttered. Shaking her gently, he whispered. “Mabel.” When she didn’t respond, he spoke louder, resisting the urge to shake harder. He didn’t know for sure she wasn’t hurt, and he didn’t want to cause more damage if she was. Still nothing. Cursing, he was about to lay her back down and make a run for it when her eyelids fluttered. Then snapped open.
Just like that, she was there.
“Hey, Cowboy,” she smiled. “Some party, huh?”
“Get up pretty lady,” he said with a grin. “We’ve got to move and move now. Ol’ Leonard plowed right into the field, and there’s sirens going off everywhere. Something tells me they aren’t all local.”
Slowly, as if waking from a long, dreamy sleep, Mabel allowed herself to be lifted.
“Lost your shirt, Cowboy,” she said, running her fingers down his chest. Jess groaned at her touch, but pulled back with a growl. “Not lost,” he said, leaning to retrieve his package. “I didn’t want to leave with nothing, you know?”
“Leave?” she asked.
“Bet your ass,” he replied, leaning in to kiss her deeply, then drawing back and rising. She shook herself off, rolled to her stomach and levered herself off the ground. She wobbled, just for a second, and then she was up, turning to him, one eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know who they are,” Jess said, but we can’t let them find us here. “Not with this. Not with all we know. Shit, they might lock us away in some weird-ass Area 51 and no one would ever be the wiser. We got to fly.”
In the distance, out on 17, another air horn blast split the night. Mabel smiled.
“I hear you,” she said softly.
Jess didn’t know if she was talking to him, or to the road. He slung his makeshift pack over his shoulder and took her by the arm. Together they slipped out of the Murphy’s pot field and into the soybeans. Voices floated across the field toward them, loud and insistent.
Without a glance over their shoulders, the two hurried across the field and slipped into the brush at the edge of the swamp. Behind them, Old Mills glimmered in the moonlight. Ahead, the road called out to them, and the chemicals translated. It was calling them home.
Bloody Knife and Morning Star
Bloody Knife watched from his pony as the Calvary trooped by. Their uniforms glistened in the sunlight and their weapons gleamed with the promise of glory and death. They were confident, and he felt that confidence in the air, an aura that reached out from the golden haired demon that led them to permeate the entire column.
As guide, it was the Indian's place to lead the way, but for the moment he only sat on his horse and brooded, watching the soldiers pass noisily by as the spirits spoke to his soul. The golden haired one, Custer, seemed to sense Bloody Knife’s presence, and as he passed, he turned once and nodded almost imperceptibly. Bloody Knife didn’t even twitch in response.
The soldiers called this golden-haired one "The son of the Morning Star." It was appropriate. It was a time of great change and new beginnings, the twilight, and the birth of dreams. As the last of them glided by, a gaudy painting of arrogance and naiveté against a backwash of blue sky and the rising sun, Bloody knife dug his knees into his mount and slid past them like a shadow. He left them in a small cloud of dust and made his way into the ravine ahead. His mind was focused, his concentration centered on what was to come.
They met by chance. Bloody Knife had been leaning against the railing beside a tavern called "The Smoking Gun," idly sipping at his private bottle of whiskey and letting his mind wander. The bottle was as much for show as anything. Although he never drank to excess, he chose to let those around him believe it was his custom. There were reasons for everything he did, patterns shifting about him that only he could grasp.
Such a pattern placed him there, just so, when his destiny marched by. Golden hair flying in the stiff breeze, shoes shined and blue uniform so brilliant in the sun that it seemed to glow with its own, inner light, General George Armstrong Custer moved with the confidence of arrogance. He barely shifted his gaze toward Bloody Knife, but the sudden narrowing of his eyes, the slight hitch in the perfection of his stride, gave him away.
In a voice calculated for the proper volume, the General spoke to one of his two companions. "I have come here for a purpose, gentlemen," he announced. "The heathen Sioux are rampant, and it seems a strong hand is in order. Of course, they shall present no real threat to a well-trained regiment, but still, they are proving difficult."
Bloody Knife turned away. He listened, but no expression gave him away.
"You don't know them red devils, sir," the sergeant trotting along at Custer’s side puffed. "They're slicker than shadows in them woods."
"Rubbish," Custer dismissed him. "Fighting men, trained properly, are the match for any situation, especially one involving uncouth savages. I expect to have this matter resolved soon, and to be called back to more important duties in the east. Let's get some food, and then we'll talk about guides. I need to get through the 'Black Hills,' as you call them, as swiftly as possible."
"Yes sir," the man replied. He said no more, but in the tone of his voice, and the stiffening of his shoulders as he moved through the tavern door in his commander's wake, Bloody Knife read worlds of doubt. This man knew. This man had met the people of forest and plain, had seen the light of his own death burning in their eyes. The golden haired one was a fool, but there was something more.
Bloody Knife searched. He stretched his sense
s and felt the voice of the ground beneath him and those of the birds that floated in the skies above blending with his consciousness. There was an aura nearby, an aura of strength and purpose, an aura of power. It emanated from the interior of the tavern. It dragged at him like a sickness and burned like a fever, golden at the edges and bright blue in its center. He sensed a gathering darkness within that glow, and a dulling of the sight such as he'd never experienced.
Calling out to the great mother's spirit, he reached for the thoughts and aid of her children, the spirits who had passed from the earth and walked at her side. He heard them just beyond the questing tendrils of his senses, but he could not make out their words. All that would surface was an image, a glowing nimbus – a face – obscured by green fire. It was surrounded by a mane of bright, golden hair, and from within it echoed the loneliness of a shattered spirit.
Shivering, Bloody Knife brought himself back to the present. He looked about himself and re-oriented his senses. Nobody had seen him in his trance-state, but it would not have mattered. He still held the whiskey bottle tightly in one hand, and they would have assumed what they believed to be the obvious.
In that moment of vision, Bloody Knife began his journey, the foot of the trail that wound back to the mother spirit, the path to inner light. It was the moment he cast his lot with the golden haired demon and set himself to watch, and to guard. In that moment he dedicated his life, suffering the abuse of his people, the contempt of the whites, and the scarring of his soul to achieve a greater victory. It was a moment of rebirth. He alone knew it was not Custer he guarded from the Indian.
That day he’d slipped around the corner of the doorway and stolen a last glance at the man, Custer. He’d scanned the handsome features, the arrogant tilt of the man's head and the polished dignity of his demeanor. Bloody Knife had closed his eyes, drifted back to his vision, superimposed the man in the bar onto his vision, and shivered. Custer was the one; the Indian had never before felt the spirit of any who would desecrate the land so intensely.
Within "The smoking Gun," General George Armstrong Custer had felt the weight of intruding eyes and spun his head quickly to the door. It was empty, but he would have sworn, had he not feared being considered insane, that the lingering image of a man's form shimmered in that space: a dark man, an Indian, a heathen. The notion that such a man might pose a threat to an officer and a gentleman was ridiculous, and yet he felt a sudden chill. Shaking it off, he returned to his drink, and his plans.
That was the past. Now he rode out of the town and made his way toward the outskirts of the surrounding forest, where he would meet with the soldiers and take up his position as guide. As he rode, Bloody Knife let his mind slide back across the years. He left the journey to the instincts of both body and horse and freed his senses.
As a young man, life had treated him poorly. Half Sioux, half Ree, raised in a Sioux village, the taunts and challenges he received had been twice those imposed on the other boys. He had been beaten, whipped, stoned, chased and mocked, all with little time for respite. If it hadn't been for certain events in his twelfth year, he might never have survived.
The tribe he traveled with was guided by the wisdom of an ancient, wrinkled shaman named Speaks With Spirits. It was to this man that his mother had taken him when, cut by a hail of stones from the other young men of the village, his head had bled profusely. The man treated him without comment. At the time, Bloody Knife had been known as Running Dog, a name neither he, nor his mother, was pleased with, but which his father had insisted upon. Bloody Knife was the son of Soaring Hawk, but his mother, a captured Ree, was third wife.
"Leave him with me," Speaks With Spirits had said, and Running Dog – one day to be Bloody Knife – had stayed. His mother had left immediately. The old man's words were the law, and his powers were feared by all.
Bloody Knife had been in too much pain to give his fear much thought, and he'd followed meekly behind as Speaks With Spirits led him into his lodge. He'd known that others watched, and that tongues would already be wagging, but he'd been beyond caring. No one would think to harm him as long as he was in the presence of the shaman. He only hoped that the old man himself was not planning anything horrible.
Turning to him solemnly, Speaks With Spirits gestured that he should be seated. He did so, looking about himself carefully, trying not to stare at the odd array of charms, potions, and animal parts. It was impolite to be curious, but impossible not to be.
Speaks With Spirits returned a moment later with a skin filled with some sort of liquid.
"Drink," he said simply. "Drink, then sleep. Tomorrow, we will talk."
That was all. Bloody Knife, then known as Running Dog, turned up the skin and took a long swallow of something syrupy, sweet, and then suddenly bitter. It took every ounce of control he could muster not to spit the foul stuff back up, but he managed it, handing the bag quickly back to the old man, who's eyes were crinkled in sudden mirth.
"Sleep."
And he slept. Not a normal sleep. Long, deep, but filled with dreams – a journey such as he'd never known. Animals spoke to him first, blue-black ravens and otters with sleek fur, rabbits and bears – eagles. He listened as they spoke, and they flitted about him, surreal and insubstantial, whispering things he only half-heard, messages and instructions that would not stick with him, but that had re-emerged at various moments later in his life.
There were men and women, as well. At first their features blended and shifted in and out with those of the animals and remained insubstantial. They coalesced, dispersed, and then returned to him in different patterns, confusing his mind and rendering it impossible for him to place them, one voice with one face. They were all voices, all faces, joining with him and teaching, communing with his spirit and welcoming him in, though he didn’t know to where.
Speaks With Spirits was there, and yet he was not. His voice came first, chanting, rhythmic and powerful. As the sound went on, a warm glow flowed in and through Bloody Knife, and there was a subtle shift. The faces drifted away, flitted less often over one another's features. It was Speaks With Spirits, one face, one voice, and his message was the only one that made it through, the only one not lost in the barrage of vision and confusion.
"You are chosen," the voice filled him and compelled him. "You have the ears that spirits can reach, the eyes that can see beyond the veil. The great mother spirit of the earth rushes strong through your veins. What is mine is yours. My gift now joins with your own, my life and destiny and yours are bound.
"There were powers before the Sioux, powers before the peoples of plains and mountains, before the whites and their fire-sticks, before even elk and deer. Our mother is the first, the greatest. The journey must be made back into her arms, the ascension to her realms. Your feet will take that path, your spirit will share the way with mine."
There was much more. He learned of spirits and the wisdom they could bring. He learned of the earth, and of those who would desecrate her, removing the visions – silencing the voices of the spirits. All of this and more was revealed in one, long vision.
Then he woke to madness. He was wet – cold and sticky, and rising he found that he was coated in blood. He was still in the lodge of Speaks With Spirits. The old one sat in silence, legs crossed. The old man’s neck was bent at an odd angle, and blood had run from the jagged cut at his throat down to pool on the ground where the boy, then Running Dog, had lain.
The boy rose numbly. There was a knife on the ground … dropped from Speaks With Spirits' hands. The blood pooled around the knife as well, and he reached out slowly, picking it up and staring at it in disbelief. He had slept. All he had done was to drink that foul potion, whatever it might have been, and
...it was the Manlan.
The voice, not exactly a voice, but a thought that was not wholly his own, had snapped out to fill in the gap in his knowledge, the name of the potion. He trembled. The Manlan…vision drink. His mind filled slowly with a list of ingredients, a pr
ocedure he'd never known, a knowledge beyond his years and his mind.
There were voices outside the tent as well. White Elk and Bear In Woods were calling to Speaks With Spirits, and they were impatient not to be answered. They prepared for a raid, and they needed strong medicine to guide and protect them.
Without thinking, or without thinking "himself," the boy who was then Running Dog passed through the door of the lodge into the village beyond and stood, staring at the men. He held the bloody knife in his hand, and he stared at them with eyes that were different than those he'd worn before. Strong eyes. Pure and old. Wise.
"It is a bad day for a raid," he said softly. His voice carried, despite the lack of force behind the words, and his eyes did not waver. Though the questions, the anger, and the disbelief warred within their eyes, White Elk and Bear in Woods turned on their heels and walked away. Others saw him, and they saw the knife. They whispered among themselves, but they did not come forward.
Speaks With Spirits had been powerful, old and wise in the ways of spirits and demons. If he was now dead, and this boy had killed him, then there was a power in him, as well. He was Running Dog no more – his identity branded into his soul as surely as the blood stained his hands. For the moment, it gave him the power of their fear, as well, but this would not last. He knew he would have to go.
He walked slowly to the tent of his family and gathered up his weapons and his belongings without speaking. His mother only stared, but his father – unwilling to face what was to come, turned and walked from the lodge without a backward glance, refusing to acknowledge his son further. It didn’t matter. There were new teachers within him, voices that came and went with the winds, energies and powers that beckoned from far lands and long roads.
He mounted his pony and turned to leave. There was a tug on his leg, and he spun, almost, but not quite, swinging the knife. It was his mother, and her eyes were clear and proud.
