by Doug Kelly
After he had found the silver signet ring that bore Olar Regalyon’s crest, he wished to return home more than ever, but he feared that the tribe would not permit his departure, and it would be hard to convince Hauk to leave his female indulgences behind. If he could persuade Hauk to leave, they might have to flee in the night, in which case he could hardly return to Greenhill, but he desperately wanted to go back home. He felt like he had abandoned his family and Esina, and had not tried his hardest to stay with them, fight for his honor, and to bring Lanzo to justice. Instead, he had turned and run. Those desperate and impulsive actions had wrapped his conscience with guilt.
Another week slipped away, and Aton was still contemplating his departure, when one afternoon, a delegation of hill people arrived from a distant tribe. They had nominated Aton to be their leader, and had sent their council of elders to convey the proclamation. Apparently, rumors of grandeur do increase over time and distance, and this was no exception. Naturally, Aton was flattered, but he was baffled about what he should do, because he did not know whether the people of Greenhill would be enthusiastic at the proposal, or resentful. He certainly did not want to bring disharmony to these peaceful people who always exhibited so much intertribal unity.
The citizens of Greenhill acted quickly. There was an assembly of the tribe and they unanimously chose Aton as their chief. Secretly, they were annoyed that another tribe had been more forward and overt in their selection, and they were anxious to retain Aton for themselves. He humbly declined the honors. In spite of his refusal, all the tribes treated him as if he were their leader. Days later, other tribes voted to crown him as their ruler, and they sent their messengers to convey the decree. Others followed, and it seemed that they all brought him the same message over the next several weeks.
Aton thought intensely on the matter. He was flattered and ready to accept the position as the chief of Greenhill, but he was wary of the effect that absolute power can have, because he had witnessed the inherent corruption of supreme leaders. He announced that he would not use the title of chief or exercise the functions of a ruler, at least not as they were normally understood. He summoned elders from the extensive network of hill tribes for an important meeting, and explained his plan to the council of elders. He would only assume total authority in time of war, and decreed that the present chiefs would retain their powers and each should govern as before, in a decentralized fashion, but they were free to ask for his opinion on any occasion. Hauk would serve as a military advisor, expecting the same respect as that given to a chief. The council unanimously agreed to create a federation of hill tribes, and they elected Aton as their leader. In only a few weeks, news of the decision spread, and in that same timeframe, thousands of men had joined the tribes’ union. Aton had unified the hill people and created a small nation.
The hill people had built a special hut for Aton’s residence, but he received all the political delegations in the circular fort of Greenhill. He felt obligated to visit so many tribes that he postponed what he had once considered his escape from Greenhill. During Aton’s journeys from tribal camp to tribal camp, he gained alliances with even more of them and could only estimate that the coalition had grown again by thousands of people. Filled with pride in his accomplishment, Aton considered that he commanded a loyal army that was far larger than any marching forces dreamed of by the warlord Olar Regalyon. In fact, it would take the power of a warlord to match the number of men now under Aton’s will, but he still was not happy.
The truth was that he missed his family and Esina more every day. There was no means of communicating with them and no way of knowing who currently ruled over Aton’s clan. So much time had elapsed since he fled his clan that nearly anything was possible. Back home, Lanzo’s treasonous aspirations might have already attained for him the title of warlord. Aton would have given anything to know of his family’s fate, and Esina’s, too. Only a special courier with extensive and detailed knowledge of the region could successfully convey a message, but he could not get an emissary like that. Even if he found a long-distance messenger, he could not instruct him exactly how to reach his family or Esina, and there was always the possibility of hostile people intercepting his message or killing the courier.
Aton desperately wanted to communicate with his family and the only woman that he loved. He desired to tell them that he was fine, to learn of their circumstances, and let them know that he hoped they were also doing well. Now that he had found the old American road, Interstate 55, he believed that he could get home through this unfamiliar territory, which was a region that he had always wanted to explore. He thought that he knew the approximate direction of his clan, and had inquired about it within the Greenhill tribe, but they had no idea where it was. However, to the south along the ancient American highway, they knew of a village named Tarply. That village had clansman, like Aton, with whom they had traded for metal tools. The Greenhill tribe knew that it was a dangerous territory, because raiding nomads also inhabited the area. After hearing of the village, he supposed that he could find a path back to Esina and his family by using that ancient road, but he might risk his life while crossing such hostile territory. Nomads had traveled through the area, but after such a humiliating defeat and the loss of their leader, the Greenhill chief suspected the nomads might have already left the region to form new, smaller groups before they resumed their wandering lifestyle. It would actually be an opportune time to travel on the old highway.
To the south was the ocean. The hill people only went that way to trade for metal implements. They did not live there because food for their flocks and herds was not as plentiful near the coast. Until now, Aton did not know that he was so close to the ocean, so he decided to visit that immense body of water during his impending journey toward home. As nearly as he could discover, the eastern border of Lake Pontchartrain did not reach any farther south. Therefore, Greenhill was not far from the lake’s southern border. He concluded that the southern shore of the lake must run parallel with the ocean’s coastline, and if he followed the lake’s southern shore, he would ultimately reach the very creek from where he had started in his boat, but he had no idea how far it was.
He knew that he could not send a message with any of the hill people, and they preferred not to travel through the dense forests, because their migratory paths through the woods and the open plains were their chosen habitats. The forest was just a place to hide. Two routes home were open to him. One was straight through the forest on foot to the old American highway, and the other by water. To travel by water would require him to construct another boat. Since he had no boat, nor any effective way to make another one, travel by foot was obviously what he was better prepared for. Consequently, he chose the forest route to the ancient road, and he resolved to attempt the journey. When and how could he do it without offending his friends with his departure?
In the meantime, while he considered the details of his parting, he visited a river where it flowed to the shore of the big lake, this time accompanied by a dozen men with spears. The visit only increased his admiration of the place; it would be sad to leave. He ascended a tall cypress tree. From these branches, he had a clear view of the vast lake and its distant, wide horizon. There were no islands and no land in sight. The water was open with gentle, rolling waves. A warm breeze blew from the south. He imagined the wind was Esina’s sweet breath blowing across his neck. He knew his true happiness was in that direction, but sadly, it was away from the tranquility of Greenhill and all of his new friends who resided there.
While perched on his arboreal throne, he concluded that he would travel south, to the village of Tarply, but not alone. He would convince Hauk and a group of tribesmen from Greenhill to accompany him to the village near the Gulf Coast. To get there, they would ride the slain nomads’ horses on the old American highway that Aton had already discovered. Travel should be swift on the ancient, clear, and wide path.
He jumped from the tree, and they started back to the villa
ge. The escorts had some trouble maintaining their new leader’s pace as he went through the woods. On the way back to Greenhill, Aton was preoccupied with how he could leave his friends and still be able to return to them and resume his position as their leader. As he walked back, he thought and thought, trying to discover some means by which he could accomplish this goal, but the more he considered solutions to this perplexity, the more difficult it appeared to him. There seemed to be no plan that promised easy success, but he had to risk the attempt, because it was all that he could do.
Days after returning from the woods, he woke one morning with a mind full of ideas that he felt would surely succeed if anything could. The question had solved itself during restful sleep. His mind, strained with too much exertion, had recovered its intellectual capacity and bloomed again like a spring flower. With the men of Greenhill that would join him on the path to Tarply, and others that would soon follow, he hoped to establish another tribe near that southern village, to increase his power base. Therefore, the journey would be more like a migration rather than an expedition away from Greenhill. Then, he could devote himself to increasing and consolidating his rule over the two peoples, hill people and clansmen. Perhaps he might organize his own dominion that could rival any warlord’s, but first he would have to unite two different cultures.
Aton summoned Hauk and, inside Greenhill’s circular fort, convened an assembly of chiefs from the nearest tribes. Before the meeting could take place, they all drank from a ceremonial cup filled with warm goat’s milk, passing it hand to mouth, slurping the tepid drink loudly as they did. He asked the council if they would place sufficient confidence in him to assist him with carrying out certain plans. In unison, they replied that they had faith in him and would explicitly obey. Without directly appealing to Hauk first, he explained his intention to leave Greenhill, hoping the chiefs would not take the announcement as an insult, because he did not present his plan as if it were an abandonment of the tribe, but rather an expansion of it by taking volunteers with him to colonize the southern region. If they agreed, and he assumed that they would, this would prompt Hauk to resume the long journey home with Aton. After all, how could Hauk spend his share of their fortune while living with a tribe in the hilltops? To use it, he would have to find people that understood the value of precious metals and jewels, people who would accept the plundered treasure as payment for all the material things that Hauk had desired during his rough life, but had never been able to attain while living as a slave. Therefore, Aton intended to influence Hauk’s decision indirectly by first getting the council to agree with the plan. If Aton could sway the opinion of the majority, the rest, including Hauk, would simply agree due to peer pressure, and the decision would appear to be their own. As the owner of his decision, Hauk would be more committed to the endeavor with Aton.
The council voted and unanimously agreed with Aton’s proposal, and so did Hauk, just as Aton had suspected they all would do. The council suggested to Aton that such a journey away would require the protection of many men from their tribe. The Greenhill chief decided that if the men were to travel by horse, they should use all of the animals that they had confiscated from the dead nomads. The horses were healthy and strong, had beautifully hand-tooled leather saddles, and intricately woven horse blankets. Twenty swift horses for twenty men. They would leave the next day.
The next morning, they began the ride toward the ocean, soon afterward expecting to find the village of Tarply near the coast, which was exactly where Aton’s guides had already told him it would be. The best path to travel to Tarply was the old highway, which meant that they first had to traverse through a section of the dense forest to get to that road. This journey to the ancient road was not in a straight line, because an almost impenetrable timberland covered the area, which constrained them to a serpentine path across it. They meandered around thickets of trees, because certain sections were too dense to pass through when accompanied by horses. Although they had hill ponies that were accustomed to the rough terrain, the pace was slow.
They also had to slip through a river valley to avoid a great ridge of hills, because it was the nomad’s tradition to travel along them for great distances, and their enemy had frequently traversed these ridges. Although the threat from nomads was low, because of the recent crushing defeat delivered to the road pirates at the hands of Aton, Hauk, and the hill people, they thought it would be best to remain cautious. Through the river valley, which wound between the hills, they approached the old highway, hidden by the timbers. Tig knew it was there, but the trees were so tall and thick that they could not see very far. He dismounted, broke low branches to clear the shortest path out of the forest and yelled a command for the others to dismount and pull the reins to lead their horses the final distance through the thick woods.
They emerged into the bright light of the afternoon sun, and the old divided highway was before them. At the sight of the road that might unite him with Esina and everyone else that he loved, Aton could not restrain the joy in his heart. After mounting his beast, some invisible osmotic force seemed to transfer Aton’s joyous spirit to his horse, and without an overt command from its new master, his steed pranced its way to the road. As Aton’s horse trotted toward the chosen path, he only gave the reins one small pull to the right, and his stallion entered the road heading the correct direction: south. At first, Aton took the lead, but the nomads quickly spurred their horses, catching up with him and enveloping their new leader. A galloping escort of mounted horses had encircled Aton; he considered this protocol unnecessary and restrictive. Hauk guided his animal through the prancing wall that surrounded Aton, so that he could travel next to his best friend. Their mounts were so used to the rough terrain of the hills that the horses found galloping across the relatively level path of fractured concrete almost effortless. They maintained a healthy pace along the tree-lined highway until sundown, and then they looked for a place to rest for the night.
Tig had scouted ahead, as he was used to doing, and came back to tell the others that he had found a place to camp. They trotted to a place where the outer lane deviated from the highway. It was what remained of an exit ramp, which continued to the right and up the embankment. Tig led them up the hill on what still lingered of the cracked concrete. At the ruins of an ancient building, their shelter for the night, Aton dismounted, and his horse began grazing in the tall grass. Tig took the reins of Aton’s steed and gestured that he would do the same for Hauk. The hill people knew of a nearby stream where they could water the animals. Before giving his horse to Tig, Hauk removed his and Aton’s saddlebags. Aton and Hauk had divided their loot evenly between them, by weight, balancing the saddlebags, which had hung heavily on either side of their horses’ flanks. They trusted the men of Greenhill with the fortune, but it made Hauk feel much more comfortable to be in control of that which he hoped would provide him a life of luxury.
With the dimming twilight through the tall trees of the forest, Hauk peeked into the bags to steal another look at the treasure. With great pleasure, he fondled their plunder, feeling the jewelry pour between his fingers, before concealing it with the leather flap. He hid the bags next to a nearby tree, under a blanket of leaf litter.
Hauk went to the front of the building, or what remained of it, and found his friend intently staring above the archway of what had been the front entrance. Aton seemed to be in a trance as he stared at the ruins of the structure, so rather than disturb Aton, Hauk wandered away to find a good place for a campfire. He chose to go back to where he had hidden the saddlebags.
Only two of the building’s adjoining walls remained. There was no roof, doors, or windows. Above the open doorway, Aton was looking at the words engraved into a rectangular block of concrete. Two words, REST STOP, were still visible. Whenever Aton read inscriptions of the ancients, he was mesmerized. His imagination had run wild as he tried to decipher the connotation of ancient words and the intention of the American writings, and now he had two more wor
ds to decipher their combined meaning. Individually, he understood the words, but together, he surmised that they might have had a different implication to the ancient ones than anything that he could presume. Too tired for any mental puzzles, he shrugged his shoulders and went through the doorway to the other side of the adjoining walls. In the corner of the only two standing brick walls was a pile of ash on an old slab of cracked concrete. Radiating upward and away from the corner, expanding on the surface of the concrete slab and walls, outward from the pile of cold, black cinders on the ground, was the residue of all the soot from the countless fires that had previously burned there. Behind these walls was a good place to have a fire that travelers on the highway could not easily see when passing. Obviously, from the size of the pile of ashes, and the thickness of the smut covering the walls, other travelers had also thought of this. Now it was Aton’s turn to establish a campsite.
Not realizing or concerned with the advantage of concealment that the remains of the ancient building provided, because he had carelessly slept in the open on numerous occasions, Hauk had already started a fire near the hidden saddlebags, only a short distance away from the old structure, but still visible from the road. Aton summoned Hauk, told him to bring firewood, and convinced his friend that the ash pile in the corner of the old building should be their fireplace this evening.
After placing dry fallen branches on the pile of dark cinders, Hauk lit a twig in the fire that he already had ablaze, and he transported it to the better location. He threw the burning stick onto the kindling. The wood crackled, ignited, and emitted a bright light. The dark ashen walls behind the flames appeared like a shadowy passageway to an abyss. They slept uncomfortably on the hard slab of cracked concrete.
