After Trent had gathered all of the bear’s bones that he could find, he tied off the sack and handed it up to Zana.
The Shaman passed down the can of gasoline, and Trent poured it over the bones, until the fumes in the pit were almost overwhelming. He tossed the metal can aside, then climbed out of the giant hole to stand with the rest of them.
“I have a match,” Zana said, handing it to Trent.
“This is my duty,” the Shaman said, as he took the match from Zana’s hand.
Before Trent could stop him, the Shaman hopped down into the pit with the agility of a young man.
The Shaman walked to the center of the pit, bones crunching beneath his feet.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Zana said to Trent.
“He’s a good man, but he’s ready to leave.”
“We don’t have a say in this,” Christina said.
The Shaman looked up and took a deep breath as he sat down amidst the bones.
“If you would wish something for me,” he said, “let it be that I have atoned enough for my past that I might return one day to a better life than the one I have just lived.”
Trent watched—his eyes filled with respect and sadness—as the Shaman, Otsioza, lit the match and dropped it in front of him. As soon as the flame hit the bones, the entire pit erupted in fire that was hot enough to melt the snow in and around the pit.
Zana and Christina turned away from the burning man in front of them, but Trent honored the Shaman’s final act of penance by watching until the old man’s charred corpse collapsed in on itself.
As he watched the bones burn, Trent knew that the animals were finally free and avenged. At last they could enter the cycle of life again—their long wait finally over.
Trent looked down at the sack filled with the bones from the great grizzly.
“First, we have to get back to the cabin,” he said, “and then there’s one last thing we have to do before this is finished the way it needs to be.”
Chapter 49
TRENT, ZANA, AND CHRISTINA were silent on the way to the cabin but relieved to make it there before the snow had really started to accumulate. Two more days of weather like this and they would have no hope of getting the car out of the woods, but before they left, they went into the cabin and lit the wood stove to warm up.
Trent changed into dry, fresh clothes, and they all sat around the small wooden table in the kitchen and let the heat from the stove warm their bones. Trent stared into the flames that danced inside the stove’s iron belly. He would never look at fire the same way again, and it would be a long time before he stopped seeing the image of the Shaman sitting perfectly still as he self-incinerated.
It was the last thing that he wanted to do, but he knew it was as good a time as any to speak to Christina—to really talk to her about them.
“I know you’re just getting warm,” he said to Christina, “but any chance you’re up for a quick walk?”
Christina nodded, and the two of them stood up. Zana frowned only slightly, but Trent could tell that she understood. That was one of the things he admired so much about her. He had never met anyone as strong-willed, yet understanding and compassionate as Zana.
Trent held the door open for Christina, and the two of them outside into the snow.
They walked along for a few minutes before stopping. Their bodies faced each other, but neither one looked at the other.
“The snow’s letting up a little,” Christina finally said, breaking the silence.
“I want to talk to you,” Trent said.
“You’re not going to ask me to dinner again, are you?” she said, with a forced laugh.
Trent smiled and shook his head.
“No, I guess not.”
Christina stared at her boots.
“I can tell you two are right for each other, you know? For whatever that’s worth. It’s actually kind of gross.”
They both laughed for real this time, and Trent felt the words inside him loosen up enough for him to speak.
“I didn’t mean for things to work out the way they did, Christina. I really wanted you to come away with me the last time I was here, but then…things just happened.”
“I know,” she said.
Trent exhaled heavily, and a cloud of white air rose from his mouth. They had already said all that had to be said and were trapped again in awkward silence.
Trent pulled out the necklace with the silver disc on it that he still wore around his neck.
“This helped me more than you know,” he said. “Back in Vegas. It helped me…focus.”
Christina smiled, but only a little. She gently took the disc from him and held it in her hand.
“I gave this to you on purpose—so you’d remember me.”
“That was never a problem.”
“I’ll understand if you don’t want it anymore,” she said, “but I’d like it if you kept it. Maybe think of me once in a while. Just because we weren’t meant to be together, doesn’t mean we can’t still mean something to each other.”
Trent swallowed hard, then tightened his face and nodded.
“I’ll keep it with me always.”
The two of them stared into each other’s eyes. If Zana hadn’t been in his life, he would have kissed her, but instead, he pulled her to him and hugged her tightly.
After a while, they let go of each other, and Christina wiped her eyes.
“You better be good to Zana. Because if you aren’t, I’m coming after you. Understand?”
They both laughed again as more of the tension seeped away.
“I bet you’re ready to go home,” she said.
“I am. But I have a favor to ask first. I need to see where they buried the Elder.”
Chapter 50
AFTER A SLIPPERY drive back into town, it only took Christina an hour to find out where the Elder’s grave was. Normally, when someone died in Whittier, his or her body was taken to Anchorage, but the Elder left a single request in his will.
He gave very specific instructions about the location of his final resting place and had sworn the town doctor to secrecy. Thankfully, a few bottles of vodka and the charms of both Christina and Zana were more than enough to loosen the doctor’s lips.
With the snow still falling, it took them an hour or so of hiking to find the gravesite that was located off the mountain trail behind The Towers. It was near the stream where Christina had given Trent the now infamous bite on his shoulder. Zana squeezed his hand as they made their way to the Elder’s grave.
With the stones piled on top of one another, it looked more like a cairn than a grave. Without any words, Trent moved farther into the woods, set the sack that was filled with Ka’a’s bones to the side, and started digging a hole in the hard ground. When he finished, he set the bag in the hole and covered it back up.
He went back to the Elder’s grave, where Zana and Christina were already partway through removing the rocks. He picked up some of the largest rocks he could carry and stacked them on top of Ka’a’s new resting place.
After he was done making a pile of the rocks, Trent stood up and looked around. He took out his knife and marked a few of the nearby trees in case he ever had to find the place again and help Ka’a move on to his next life.
With a final nod to Ka’a’s grave, Trent, Zana, and Christina walked over and stood above the plywood box they had unveiled inside the Elder’s grave. The last thing Trent wanted to do was to open the cheaply made coffin, especially since the stench was already reaching their noses.
But he had to be sure the Elder was there before he did this.
Placing his sleeve over his mouth, he reached down and pulled on the coffin’s lid. It was held shut with some rusted nails, but after a few tugs, it loosened. Trent flipped up the lid and backed away from the grave. Whoever had buried the Elder had scooped up what the bear had left intact and had thrown the pieces into the wooden box. Trent stared at all that remained of the Elder—the Hunte
r’s father—the Shaman’s son.
Without a pause, Christina started to douse the coffin with gasoline and lit it on fire.
Trent stepped back as the flames shot up quickly.
As he watched grimly, he imagined hearing the Elder’s spirit scream as it realized that its days of evil, at least on this earth, were finally at an end.
Chapter 51
CHRISTINA, ZANA, AND TRENT stood near the rent-a-car that was packed up and ready to go.
Christina nodded at the economy-sized vehicle.
“Hope you make it through the state and out of Canada with no problems. If you stop for too long, it might be a few months before you can go anywhere again…in that thing, at least.”
“We’ll be fine,” Trent said, turning to Zana. “Going to take it slow and steady, right?”
Zana nodded and grinned.
“No hurry on my part,” she said.
Christina half-smiled and squinted her eyes against the lightly falling snow.
“Any shows coming up?”
“I’m thinking about taking a couple of months off. Get my mind right. Work on some new routines. I’ve got a lot of new ideas, as you might imagine.”
“What about you, Zana? Any big plans?” Christina said, with a smile that was mostly genuine.
Zana touched Trent’s arm and smiled back at Christina.
“I figure I’ll stay with this guy until he gets tired of me. Then maybe I’ll find myself a quiet town somewhere and open up my own flower shop.”
“That sounds…nice,” Christina said as she stepped up to Zana and hugged her. At first, Zana seemed surprised, but Trent noticed that she hugged back just as Christina was letting go.
“I’ll be in the car, baby,” Zana said, as she walked around to the passenger’s side and hopped in.
Since their conversation in the cabin, Trent and Christina hadn’t said much to each other—not because either of them were angry, but because there was really nothing left to say.
They looked at each other, then hugged briefly before moving apart.
“Things around here are going to be a lot more boring without you around here,” she said quietly.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a bad thing.”
Christina tilted her head toward the car.
“I think you two are just weird enough to make it together as a couple—at least for a while.”
Trent nodded.
Christina turned toward the road leading out of town.
“Tunnel’s opening in about ten minutes.”
Trent laughed as he opened the car door while still facing Christina.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to miss it.”
Trent slipped into the driver’s seat, closed the door behind him, and started the engine.
He and Zana waved to Christina as they drove away.
Within minutes, they pulled up to the rear of the short line of cars waiting to leave Whittier.
Trent turned to Zana as he had done so many times in the recent past.
“It’s not there is it?” he asked, more for old time’s sake than for anything else.
Zana shook her head and pulled Trent’s collar back from his neck and shoulder.
“Totally clear,” she said. “It even looks like your wound is finally starting to heal.”
Suddenly the light turned green, and cars were waved into the dark, narrow tunnel.
As they entered the mountain, it seemed unreal to Trent that he was finally leaving Whittier, possibly for good.
“What are you thinking about?” Zana said, as she reached over and held his hand.
Trent glanced up at the tunnel ceiling.
“Just trying to figure out the distance between those lights up there.”
Zana laughed, leaned over, and kissed him on his cheek.
“That sounds like the Trent I remember meeting back in Vegas. Are you really going to take a break from being a mentalist?”
He looked at her and smiled.
“I said I was going to take a break from performing as a mentalist, but mentalism is more than a job. It’s just who I am—and I don't plan on taking any time off from being me.”
They drove slowly through the eerie tunnel for another mile before Zana spoke again.
“Are you sure you made the right choice back there—leaving with me, I mean?”
Trent glanced over at her, then back at the tunnel traffic.
He inhaled and let out a deep breath.
“Have you ever had that feeling after making a really big life decision? Like your stomach is yelling at you and telling you that you fucked something up and that you did the wrong thing?”
Zana remained silent.
“Well…that’s not at all how I feel right now.”
Zana let out the breath she had been holding and smiled. She squeezed Trent’s hand as they neared the oval of bright sunshine that marked the end of the tunnel. They quickly put their sunglasses on as they settled into the long trip back—first to Anchorage, then across Alaska, down through Canada, and eventually, back to the lower forty-eight.
Once they made it back to the land of more sensible weather, Trent was sure that neither of them knew where they were going next, but he was equally positive that they were going there together.
###
Author’s Note
Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the Trent Walker Whittier Trilogy, I would very much appreciate a quick review on Amazon, either by filling out the form that pops up at the end of this e-book or by going to the Whittier Trilogy product page on Amazon.
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Thank you for reading - Mike
About the Real Whittier
The town of Whittier, Alaska, is absolutely a real place and is mostly as I have described in this book.
Whittier can only be reached by car on the half hour every hour, and you can only get out of the town by car every hour on the hour up until 11 p.m. If you don’t make the last tunnel out, you do have to spend the night in Whittier. Yes there is an airport, but it is not maintained or staffed, and unless you happen to have your own airplane with you, that won’t get you out after 11 p.m. And yes, there are boats in Whittier, but once again, this is not a plausible way to leave the town at night, unless in an emergency.
It is also true that the majority of Whittier’s two hundred or so residents all live in the same apartment building, which also contains the town’s barber, its school, and its police department. I did visit this building briefly, and it had the feel of what it was—a repurposed military building. But in the building’s defense, the people hanging out in the lobby seemed to exude a friendly sense of community, and I have no doubt that it could be a fun place to live under the right circumstances. Just maybe not year round…
Underground tunnels do connect the various building of the town, although my research indicates that they are blocked off and would not have been a viable means of escape for someone trapped in the basement of the apartment building.
As far as characters go, I only met a few people in Whittier, and the ones I did meet were very nice and did not resemble any of the crazed characters in my book. There was, however, a beautiful young woman who served me a decaf soy latte, but not knowing I would soon write a horror story about her town, I only spoke a total of three or four words to her.
As far as the character of Trent goes, I do not practice mentalism or even magic, but I did meet one strange and wonderful fellow recently who entertained a group of us for a few hours one afternoon in exchange for free shots of Jägermeister. When I was searching for the right protagonist for this story, I concluded that someone who practiced the art
of mentalism would be a perfect choice to explore a world where people may or may not be possessed by the spirits of dead animals.
It is also important to note that I was never attacked by any of the residents of this wonderful town, nor was I locked in a building, nor did I have sex with anyone while there, especially on the cold ground in the mountains surrounding the town. That being said, Whittier is a strange place, and I don’t get a feeling that any of its residents would argue this point. There are plenty of weird tales about the town on the Internet, and it is known or talked about by Alaskans as being haunted.
All in all, the town has a rich history, and I was lucky to have spent almost a full day there at the end of this last summer while visiting my cousin Jay and his family.
If you are ever in the area, I suggest taking a day to visit the place and going out on one of its famous glacier tours. It is an experience not easily forgotten.
What’s Really Under Vegas
Let me state right up front that, although I have certainly been to Las Vegas, I have never ventured into the storm drain tunnels under its streets. That being said, the Internet is littered with estimates for how many miles of storm drain tunnels really exist under the town, eventually leading to Lake Meade, the place that supplies the area with its drinking water. The most common estimate I found was around 300 miles of tunnels, but I read about estimates as high as 450.
The Internet is also filled with various guesses about how many people actually live in these tunnels. The most consistent estimate I came across was an underground population of around 1,000 people. That is a lot of humans.
As far as the people who call the tunnels home, I was surprised by some of the film footage I watched, demonstrating the ingenuity of many of the tunnel dwellers. Some had beds, makeshift showers, and even bookshelves, and all were under constant threat of flash floods. Many of the people I read about earned some sort of a meager living up top on the strip, either by looking for coins or taking whatever jobs they could find.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 52
