It wasn’t hard to locate their leader. A bulldog like young man called Junior with a broken nose and three front teeth missing excitedly surveyed the situation. He felt as if he’d come on an unexpected treasure that was his for the taking. A slim teenage girl with a long thin face was urging him to allow her to pick off the hunters one by one with her crossbow. But her obnoxious efforts earned her a slap on the side of her face. She fell back whining.
“What’ ll we do?” one of the men asked. “We could pick them off like Lena said.”
“Idiots.” The hushed voice of the bulldog man rasped. “And waste what little ammunition we have left? No. We’ll negotiate a surrender. Get them to give us some meat and some arms and we let them go free.”
“Free?” The protest, heartfelt came guarded. “They’ll bring Bloody Carson’s men down on us for sure.”
The leader drew a long thin knife. “It’s easier to cut a throat than waste a crossbow bolt.” He grinned with yellow green teeth and drew the razor sharp blade across a piece of pine. It ran through like butter.
“One is a kid,” came another guarded protest from back of the group.
“Ain’t stopped us before.” The leader spat. “Read once killin’ a virgin is bad luck.” He grinned wolfishly. “Maybe we’ll have Lena break him in before we kill him. Like that, Lena baby?” He flung her away. She landed on her crossbow which fired into a ponderosa pine high overhead showering bark. He cursed and turned his attention to our people.
Charles moved up next to me. “We’re sitting ducks. I did notice a Federal patrol close to Snow Bowl Road. I’ll plant a thought to move them in this direction. Hopefully, the soldiers will come up behind these characters pretty quick. Meanwhile we need a diversion.”
“Indeed, a storm,” I said, looking at a clear blue sky. “First I’ll let Abe know.” I moved to my son, and gently made myself known. Slowly he smiled and nodded.
“Dick, Dad and Grandpa Charles are going to create a storm of sorts.”
Dick squinted at the jay hawkers. “Hope they do it quickly.” He looked around. “Jamie, we haven’t much time. Got a feeling these people aren’t patient folk.” I explained what we were planning. Pine needles crackled under his feet. The air stirred. A breeze sprang up. A carefully placed crossbow bolt smashed into the tree above and behind his head.
Then wind began to build, scattering leaves dirt and pine needles in the air. The jay hawkers looked around wide eyed and alarmed. The sky remained clear with high scattered clouds.
“Like I said,” Junior shouted, “we only want some meat and some weapons. We’ll let you go. We’re no killers. Trust us.”
“We’re from Cheshire. And no, we don’t trust you,” Dick hollered back.
“Hey, that’s the place of wizards and witches. They do scary things. Everyone at the Fort is afraid of them. I heard they can control the weather.”
Junior whirled on the man, aiming his crossbow. He pulled the trigger, but the bolt cracked in half and flew up, cutting his face. “Goddamn superstitious jerk, shut your face. It’s just a mountain thermal.”
Dick shouted back, “The wind is our friend. It is helping protect us. It will get stronger. Soldiers will come up behind you. You’re finished.” The wind did increase, concentrating around the jay hawkers. One man bolted into the forest. Then another.
“Hey, goddammit!.” Junior aimed his crossbow at his people. “They ain’t for real.” Then a burst of automatic rifle fire tore the air. The rest of the jay hawkers broke and ran. Junior waved his crossbow. A look of shocked surprise lit his face. The last thing he saw through his physical eyes was the icy face of Lena looking across the sights of her crossbow. The bolt stood in his heart.
Sergeant Burt Clark stood with Dick Clayton looking down at the body of Junior, lying spread-eagled on his back, shot through the heart. “Your work?” Burt asked.
“No.”
“Nice shooting,” Burt observed.
Junior looked astounded, in stunned recognition, at his physical body.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” I said humorously.
“I’m dead. Goddamn, I’m dead.”
“Your physical body is, but you, Richard ‘Junior’ La Grue are obviously very much alive,” I replied.
“Hey.” He waved a hand in front of Dick’s face. “He can’t see or hear me. What’s going on?” He faced me. “You’re the Wizard everyone talks about.”
“Slow down,” I said. “One thing at a time.”
“How’ d you know my name?” he began again.
“How’ d you know who I am?” I countered.
“I just knew. It came to me.”
“That’s one of the way things work here.”
He pointed to his body. “I don’t understand this.”
“It’s pretty simple. The physical body you inhabited doesn’t work anymore. Lena’s a very good shot.”
“But she was my old lady.”
“How’ d you treat her?”
He stood there a long time, and finally said, “Why can’t they see me or hear us?”
“It’s kind of like this. Remember TV with the different channels? We’re on one channel and they’re on another.”
He stopped and waved his hands. “What about the windstorm?”
“I and another person created it, with the help of the Earth, as a diversion to save our hunters from you folks.”
“An exception to every rule,” Junior said. Four of his gang sat sullen and guarded.
“If you know what you’re doing.”
“I feel drawn to my older sister, Maggie. I don’t know why.”
“She has come for you. Turn with me.” We turned and saw a middle-aged woman smiling at us. Her welcoming energy surrounded Junior.
He sobbed, overwhelmed. Maggie and I stabilized his energy. When he calmed, Maggie said, “I can take him now. Thank you for your help.” I bowed. They vanished.
I turned back to our hunters and the soldiers. Charles said, “They are deciding whether to go back with the soldiers or continue with the hunt. Burt is counseling returning as the escaped jay hawkers might ambush them again.”
“Future probabilities say they will be safe,” I said.
“I agree,” Charles said, “but the thought will nag them and our people at Cheshire. There is always another day. Call off the hunt.”
I touched Abe’s mind and explained our thoughts. Abe gave the information to Dick who rubbed his unshaven chin. “We have most of what we came for.” He walked over to Burt. “We’ll go back with you.”
We went back into our physical bodies, and explained to our waiting people. Our people waited anxiously until our hunters and the soldiers entered the Main Gate a day later. The four jay hawkers were placed under guard at the picnic table under the pavilion at the Arms Shack.
After giving us big hugs Abe looked a little apprehensive. “Can I still go again?”
“It’s okay with me,” I said, looking at a relieved Judith. “But we’ll study the probabilities a wee bit closer.”
Judith frowned, hesitating. “As a mommy I have certain reservations, but I’ll keep an open mind mostly.” She laughed and hugged our son again.
Burt and his soldiers stayed for lunch. The jay hawkers ate at the heavily guarded table. Helen asked Burt if we could check an injured jay hawker. Burt agreed and looked at me. “You’re not going to work on him?”
“Evan McPherson and Laith will do that,” I said.
Burt reached over and touched the wrist cuff. “Kodus,” he said. Not expected. I was stunned.
“How?” I asked. We’d known each other for about eight years. Ever since he came out with an undermanned infantry company. Carson offered him a commission, but he turned it down. Mustangers were common in the Army now. Promotion by merit alone.
He nodded and jerked a thumb toward the Peaks. “I dreamed I went into their ships. Hard to describe. Huge. There wasn’t a square room in the place, and the room sizes seemed to shift and move.”
He scratched his head. “They got larger or smaller depending on how many people were in the room.”
“What did the people look like?” I eyed him.
He looked at me dumbfounded and shook his head. “I never saw them. They were there and I knew it, but, ya know, I never saw them.” He stared at his tea cup. “That is the oddest thing, but it’s blank.”
“Where’ d you get my name?”
“You’re well known up there. They are eager to meet you and us. Seems you were a part of getting them started - their civilization. Something about eugenics and a forbidden relationship. I didn’t get it all.”
“Forbidden relationship?”
“It was a very big thing. A world was involved. Actually a whole civilization was dependent on an inviolate person - a Queen. And you put it all at risk.”
“My goodness, I must have been a bad bad boy.” I smiled.
Burt looked irritated. “Reckless. You and this Queen were willing to compromise everything for the sake of this relationship.” He shook himself. “God, I almost sound like I had a stake in this past. Doesn’t make sense.”
“So, you were part of all of this. What does that tell you?” Just then Judith walked up.
Burt sputtered and backed away.
“God, Burt, what’s that all about?” Judith said, alarmed.
Burt turned back, eyes wide. “You were the alien Queen, Judith.”
Judith looked at me. “Ahh.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched. She nodded and backed away.
Burt scowled. “I feel like I should be on my knees in front of you. You were the repository of all wisdom, knowledge, and the law for them. The female version of the Creator. It was a vast thing. These women were bred and raised for this. It was rather like the Dalai Lama in that the same personality kept coming back. You were the last. After you died, the post was never filled again.”
Judith said, “I hope I wasn’t that bad.”
“No. In the dream, you died during an accident while your spacecraft was entering the atmosphere of a planet.”
I looked down remembering, and looking up, tried to smile. “Now this is a new time. Hopefully, some of the past will remain in the past.”
Burt stood, scowling. “Best be getting back with our guests.”
The soldiers formed a box around the four jay hawkers. They were young. The oldest barely thirty. Three were young men in their late teens, eyes challenging and lips curled, they walked heads held high. The injured jay hawker, a youth with the wisp of a mustache, arm in a sling, caught Abe’s eyes, smiled slightly and nodded. They passed the Main Gate, and in minutes disappeared into the pines flanking Highway 180 going into Flagstaff.
“They’re going to hang, aren’t they, Dad?” Abe, voice low and depressed held anguish.
“Possibly. I don’t know. That’s up to Carson. He could send them back on a train if he thinks they aren’t a danger to society.”
“Or deserve a second chance.”
“Indeed, a second chance. We can pray to the Powers-That-Be for a second chance. Prayer can be a powerful tool. We’ll see.”
10
The rest of the day was a celebration for the safe return of our hunters. We kept them close, and rejoiced. That evening we staged a music fest with comedy and foolishness. A grand time until late into the night. Outside we looked up at the alien spacecraft, lights in their windows, and wondered when we’d meet. We’d built a wonderful life in Cheshire using talents and abilities from many sources - physical and nonphysical, ourselves and others from other realities. Now I had to go to a place I dreaded and had avoided with every excuse I could think of. But no more. I had to search out a reincarnational self of long ago - Kodus. I had no idea where he was, and what he’d been doing. So I prayed to the Powers-That-Be and to my Entity (about whom I had grave questions). I asked to find this self so I could understand my role in all of this. It was one of the last places I wanted to go.
I realized this reincarnational self and I were created from the same energies. Judith said it was like muffins from the same lump of dough, where we were each separate and distinct from each other. There can be bleed throughs from one personality to another as they are from the same energy. Memories, injuries, inclinations, likes and dislikes. Essence memories, I call them. But the creating Entity makes and programs each personality to do certain things, to be in a particular place and time for reasons that are often hidden from that personality. Entities come together to create cooperative ventures with their personalities. The personalities always have the irrevocable freedom to do as they wish in their waking lives. But Entities often meddle with their personalities - charting events and experiences that keep them on course. Not always a happy thing for the personality.
After a late night cup of tea around a small fire in the wood stove, we went to bed. And to sleep. In short order I found myself in that strange corridor of doors. Some doors radiated fear, anguish, and pain. Others caring, love, balance. Then I felt drawn, like a magnet, to one door. It opened by itself on an older man with grey interested eyes that twinkled with curiosity and humor. “Jamie, welcome. I understand your reluctance in coming. I’m Kodus.”
I stepped into a Spring garden with sunshine and a warming light breeze. “You decided to reunite with our Entity, Kodus,” I said.
“For me it took a long time. Others may never. I understand why, and your distrust for our Over soul.”
I felt this familiarity and odd camaraderie. “I feel I know you,” I said.
He nodded. “You should. Some lives are coded closely on other lives, depending on the Entity’s intent. We are about as close as two lives can get, and so there will be much shared in knowledge, memories, and abilities. Our Entity has made you almost an extension of myself with important differences, but of course, we are different people. The story must go on, and you are the teller now. But first I want you to meet someone.” We went deeper into the garden, past waterfalls and pools. Then turning a corner we found a grotto and a lady sitting on a bench. Regal, elegant, self-assured, she smiled and rose extending her hand. I went down on one knee and placed her hand on my forehead. Why I didn’t know. Graciously she raised me up. “Those times are past.” Judith in almost every way imaginable but with a subtle difference.
“What can you tell me that will help us understand what is going on?”
Kodus looked to Marta, his mate. “This is the completion of a larger experiment. Our Entity, through me and now you, led the way for this event to reach a successful completion. How successful depends on you and others of your time and place. There are choices to be made that can lead to positive options undreamed of in your reality. Laith, your son, is a part of this, as he is closely allied with your planet.”
“Why Ren/Locus?”
“Part of the landscape. There are no positives without negatives. The polarity of balance. Part of the self-correcting nature of the Creative Force. Ren/Locus is part of a negative that can turn positive or at least neutral. The Entity is self absorbed, and part of a more mature Entity whose experiences are available to all parts of the whole, including Ren. You’ve seen Locus come back to balance. The opportunity is there. There are other miscreants who will try everything to ruin this endeavor. Keep your wits about you.” Kodus smiled. “You have one advantage I didn’t have, being able to be in several places at once. A profound ability you will need, I suspect. Marta and I will be there to encourage you and Judith. That is one thing personalities can do who rejoin their Entities - lend their experience, knowledge, and encouragement to those still out there. What you call essence memories.”
One question worked in my mind. “How will those returning treat Judith?”
Marta said, “She, as I was, will be revered. There will be a recognition of who she is. Some will want to create the old monarchy. That will be a challenge, for she will have all the knowledge of our former civilization.”
“One of our positives is the yearning to correct our mistakes. To
make our civilization the success it might have been,” Kodus said.
“If I am right,” I said, “the group you led made a success of it after leaving eugenics behind.”
“True,” Kodus said. “But there are those who were involved in eugenics who are still convinced it was the right way to go.”
“Even after the horrors of what happened on Adora?”
“There were those,” Marta said, “who refused to leave, believing they were right. Eventually that World chose to expel them, and start over. They still search for a place to go to prove they were right.”
“And Akenton?” I asked.
Marta laughed. “After killing Mator’s body, he finally understood the futility of what he was doing. He spent a long time dedicated to helping other life forms, and finally rejoined his Entity. Your Charles carries all the lessons of his Entity.”
“And the baggage from Akenton’s life, so he intends to stay in the background,” I said.
Kodus nodded. “But it may not be possible.”
I woke with more questions. Issues I’d never considered. Were there those among the aliens who still had secret designs with eugenics? How would Carson react if the aliens revered Judith, treating her with exalted status? But one factor that intrigued me was the idea of Entities with personalities being created by older more powerful and developed Entities. And their experiences being available to the personalities, like grandchildren having the knowledge and experience available from their grandparents. How far up the line could that go?
One morning three days later we heard the train whistle blow, and breathed a giant sigh of relief. Ren was finally gone. We were home free, and congratulated ourselves on our good luck. “The gods are with us, you’d say, eh, Dad?” Abe said, plainly relieved.
“Yea verily as your grandfather would say,” I agreed. I never made fun of any religion or their god or gods, saints, and prophets. I never knew for sure their reality or lack of it. Kept my options open.
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