Blood

by Cheryl Twaddle

  "I came back to you father," the boy said. "I have left that school so that I may come back to you."

  "Yes, you have left the school," his voice was starting to rise in anger. "You ran from the school because you killed a man. You ran like the small mouse that you are!"

  "But the man was..."

  "...your teacher and you killed him." The boy felt his heart stop beating. His father was angry at him. He never expected this. "You have brought shame upon your family. Your mother cries for your soul. There is no place for you here."

  Yelping Pup looked past his father and saw his mother still standing beside the bed. When he sought her face, she turned her eyes away from him, not able to look at him. So it was true. His own mother was ashamed of him. Without hearing his side of the story, they had made their decision to believe the white man. They thought that he had killed Santini only to get away from the school. They thought him a murderer a man of evil. He looked back at his father to plead his case one more time and that's when he saw it. Hanging above the bed was a cross with the god child Jesus pinned with his arms spread out and his head hanging down. He knew what this was; there was one similar to it in the school. They had taught him about their new religion and he knew their symbols.

  "You hang the cross on the wall?" He looked back to his mother and she slowly raised her head.

  "Yes, we have found truth in the teachings of this Jesus," she said and lifted her chin, proud of her new faith.

  "But..."

  "But what?" asked his father.

  "It is a white man's religion," said the boy. "It’s not our teachings. It’s not our way."

  "It is now," his mother said and the boy knew there was no longer a place for him here. His family had turned on their own people. They had given their souls to the white man. Slowly he let go of the window ledge and backed away. He had to leave before his father turned him in. He knew that he would do that now.

  "I thought I could come back here to you," the boy whispered. "I thought you would welcome me back but I can see it’s not possible now. I will leave you now so you can bow to your white god-child. I will not be your son anymore and you can wash the shame of me off your skin."

  "Yelping Pup," his mother cried. "We want what is best for you. Please, turn yourself in. What you have done is very bad and you must seek forgiveness so your soul can be free."

  "I will never seek forgiveness from anyone mother; never." He turned from them, knowing he would never see their faces again. He walked towards the tall grass where he could sneak away into the night and never look back.

  "Boy." He was startled by the sound and turned to see his grandmother standing only feet from him. She was dressed in her sleeping clothes and the wind was blowing through her long graying hair.

  "Grandmother," he braced himself, awaiting her scolding.

  "I am not like your mother and father but I am old and have no strength to argue with them. They provide me with food and shelter and that is all my body needs right now." She stepped closer and took the boy's hands in hers. He noticed how soft the wrinkled skin was and felt calmed by this. "I am proud of what you have done. Your grandfather would have been proud as well. It was wrong to send you away and I know they treated you badly. I have heard the stories. You must be strong now and go your own way. If you stay here, they will kill you. Our people will rise again but not until we are stronger and smarter. Prepare yourself for this. Remember what your grandfather taught you and stay safe."

  "Yes, grandmother," the boy felt a peaceful resolve come over him. His grandmother believed in him. All was not lost. "I will go and make grandfather proud."

  "Thank you," she kissed his hands and he felt the moisture of her tears. She let his hands go and reached inside the folds of her sleeping dress. She pulled out a necklace he knew his grandfather used to wear. It was a thin leather rope holding the arrowhead of his grandfather's first arrow. His grandfather had been a great hunter and he knew his grandmother always kept the necklace close to her after he had died.

  "Grandmother, no, I cannot take this from you," he said. "It means so much to you."

  "Take it and always know that I am with you and that I love you." She pressed the arrowhead into his hands and he could feel the sharpness of the rock it was carved from. "Now, go. Leave before your parents alert them that you are here."

  "Yes, grandmother," he put the necklace around his neck and reached for his grandmother's hand. "I will never forget what you have given me. You are the only one who believes in me."

  "Our people will come back," she said with tears in her eyes. "Our gods will not allow us to be destroyed. Our people will come back and the white men will pay for what they have done to us."

  "Yes, grandmother." He said the words to appease her. He didn't want any arguments but, to him, the belief that there were any gods anywhere was a lie. How could there be gods out in the sky and earth when there was so much evil in the world? No, the idea of god was man's idea. A way to make people do what a man wanted. A way to make people bow before some invisible authority and obey blindly. How stupid people were. It was foolish to believe in such an obvious lie.

  The boy turned and left his home and his people, vowing to never make the same mistakes they made. He spent that first night high in the hills and listened to the howls of the wolves. The moon was full and the packs of wild dogs talked to each other with conviction and power. The boy was mesmerized by the sounds and changed his name to Howling Wolf. He became his own god, living by his own set of laws and beliefs. He returned to the forests and spent months making his way to the Mexican border. He wanted to leave this white man country, go where he felt safe, live the way he wanted.

  Five years after seeing the tears in his grandmother's eyes and accepting the arrowhead necklace, he learned of the wounded knee massacre. His grandmother was among the dead. She had believed in the words of Wovoka and believed that performing the Ghost Dance would shield her from the white man's bullets. She was shot in the head. Again religion had played its cruel trickery on a people and they had paid with their lives.

  Seven years later Howling Wolf fell with the 360. This was not a bad thing. Down here he could be god. It was easy. So many that had fallen were lost and confused. He showed them how to survive but only did so if he could acquire complete servitude from them. He got that by preaching a religion that was violent and merciless. At first, he wondered if he could get away with it but man's need to believe in something was his good fortune and he started to collect followers. He had so many followers now that he knew he would have to go to richer lands. Lands that could provide everything necessary for them to live. This was why he wanted to go north and conquer the lands in the mountains. There he could relax and not worry about his supplies and food running out.

  He couldn't wait for the snow to start melting and the cold to ease up. Soon he could gather up his followers and start their trek. He smiled at the thought of all the people enduring the cold northern winter only to be slaughtered in the spring by his Blood Demons. He took no pity on them. Their loss would be his victory and would make his religion even stronger. Such was the way of the gods. Mercy was something that man mistakenly gave their religions. There was no room for mercy in the land of the gods. That was a mistake he was not going to make.

  He was interrupted by one of his men and grunted his impatience. "Sir, a man approaches from the north." Howling Wolf dropped the arrow he had been working on and stood so he could scan the horizon. Sure enough, a lone man approached their camp. He walked alone and waved his hand in greeting.

  "Hello, and greetings to you and your men," the man reached up and took his hat off and bowed his head. Howling Wolf smiled at the lilt of the Scottish accent. He shook his head and held out his hand in welcome.

  "Maxwell, how nice to see you again. Please, make yourself at home. My camp is your camp as always."

  Chapter 11

  It’s been over six weeks since the first snowfall and winter has its grip
tightly wrapped around us. By my calculations, Christmas should be soon but no one seems to be preparing for it. I don’t know if it’s because nobody’s keeping track or because nobody cares. It’s okay, though, I don’t really feel like celebrating it anyway. Besides, there’s still no word from Max. Not that I’m sitting by the door, holding my breath until he returns, but I would still like to know if he’s okay and I’d like to know if he actually found the Blood Demons. Maybe the old saying was true; no news is good news. It would be nice to finally catch a break in this world.

  We were working hard with Colonel Al, trying to figure out how to get back home but it wasn’t going very well. Every sample of rock that we’ve collected so far is made up of the same unknown substance. It was driving both the colonel and Marshal crazy. We started going through the books in Robert’s collection and found one on rocks and minerals of the Rocky Mountains. It was no help.

  “Nothing in here resembles any of our samples,” exclaimed Colonel Al one afternoon as he slammed the book shut and tossed it on the table in the laboratory. It was warm outside and Marshal and the Colonel had been working since the early morning without any breaks.

  “Maybe, maybe it’s a new material, only found in this world,” Marshal was grasping at straws. He was frustrated just as much as the colonel but he didn’t want to upset Colonel Al any further. The man was a little intimidating when he was angry.

  “Maybe, maybe! Of course it’s new, you idiot!” Colonel Al said. “I know that and you know that but why would such a material exist here and nowhere else?”

  “Because nothing here makes sense,” I said as I entered the room. I was returning from a rock gathering mission with Billy and Kitten. We had hiked up past the pond and Marshal’s cave hideout to excavate some of the rock from a cliff that reached at least thirty feet into the sky. Billy wanted to scale the cliff but Kitten and I talked him out of it. It was mostly Kitten who convinced him; the boy was more willing to take advice from someone his own age than from me. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “What we’re always talking about,” said Colonel Al, sounding angry and fed up with being a scientist. “What the hell is this rock and where did it come from?”

  “Still haven’t found anything, huh?” I regretted the question as soon as I asked it. Colonel Al shot me a death glare. I held up my hands in surrender. “Whoa, only asking a rhetorical question. If it helps any, we went to the cliff and brought back samples for you.” I held up a bag filled with rocks.

  “Not that it will be any different,” said the colonel. “Bring it here and let’s have a look.” I brought the bag over to the table and spilled out a couple of small rocks that we chipped out of the cliff. Colonel Al took one and used a small chisel and hammer to break off a piece small enough to put under the microscope; rock dust flew up in the air causing Barker to whine. I gave him a scratch behind his ear, reassuring him that the rock was still okay. Colonel Al looked through the lenses, focusing on the material.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “It’s the same,” he said as he looked up at me. His frustration was replaced with defeat. “I give up. I don’t know what this is and I don’t know what it does. It’s like this rock is from a different planet.”

  “What about everything else?” asked Billy and I could tell he’d been wanting to ask this question for a long time.

  “What do you mean, Billy?” asked Marshal.

  “You know, like the snow and the grass,” he answered. “Did you look at those things under the microscope?”

  “I could,” said the colonel, “but I’m not a biologist. I dabbled in rocks not plants. I wouldn’t know what I was looking at.”

  “I might be able to help you with that.” Cornelius said. He and Emma Lee had just walked into the room. They, too, had been on a rock finding mission and were carrying a bag with a couple of rocks in it.

  “Cornelius?” I asked. “You know about biology?”

  “Well I didn’t study at Cambridge for six years and not learn anything,” he said. “I studied a bit of every science while I was there.”

  “You went to Cambridge?” Colonel Al sounded impressed by this. “No wonder you can navigate through the night sky. Some of the best astronomers went there.”

  “Yes, well,” Cornelius seemed embarrassed by this. “If you have any grass or leaves or anything organic, I can have a look at it and see if it’s the same as the grass from our world.”

  “Um,” said Billy, “there’s snow all over the grass. How about a pine cone or something?”

  “That would be fine,” said Cornelius. Billy took off to find something for Cornelius to look at.

  “Will this work?” Billy was back, holding his hat out to Cornelius. It was full of pine cones, pine needles, a couple of twigs and a clump of grass he must have dug under the snow for.

  “Wow, mate,” said Cornelius as he looked into the hat, “this will do just fine.”

  We all waited as Cornelius took the hat and its contents over to the table so he could study them with the microscope. He was aware of us staring at him in anticipation and he let out a nervous cough. I guess we shouldn’t put so much pressure on him but it was hard not to. The thought that things here, in this world, were so chemically different was hard to comprehend. What could it mean for our survival or our chances to get back home? I went over to the wall and sat on the floor, leaning my back against the cold stone.

  “Hmmm,” Cornelius was looking at the pine cone. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “What?” asked Colonel Al. “What didn’t you expect?”

  “Well, it isn’t even the right colour!” Cornelius looked up and met the colonel’s eyes. “Let me try the grass.” He reached into the hat and pulled out the grass.

  “What the...?” He looked up and rubbed his eyes then returned his gaze to the specimen. “No, this shouldn’t be!”

  “What?” Colonel Al asked. Cornelius moved away from the microscope and let the colonel have a look. “What am I looking at?”

  “You see how the cells are moving?”

  “Yeah?” The colonel didn’t understand what this meant.

  “Well, first of all they’re pink when they should be green,” Cornelius explained. “Secondly, they shouldn’t be moving at all.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the colonel.

  “Billy?”

  “Yeah?” asked the boy.

  “Where did you get this grass?” asked Cornelius.

  “Outside,” explained Billy. “I had to dig under the snow but I got a good handful.”

  “Yes, you did thank you,” Cornelius said then turned to the colonel. “You see? The grass was buried under the snow, in freezing temperatures. It should be frozen, dormant. There should be little or no activity in the cells and, if you look, they’re dancing up a storm. This is not how grass behaves! The other things he brought, the pine cone, dirt, pine needles, they’re all wrong! None of them are the right colours or are behaving as plants should behave. They are not the same as the world we came from.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Marshal who had been strangely quiet until now. “What does it mean, mean, mean?”

  “It means that nothing down here is the same,” I said as I stood up and walked over to the table. “What that means for us and how we get out of here? I don’t know. Does it mean anything? Maybe the colonel was right. Maybe we’re not really on Earth anymore. Maybe we’ve, somehow, fallen to another planet, one that nobody else knows about.”

  “But that would be impossible,” Robert had quietly entered the room while we were talking. “If we were on another planet, we probably wouldn’t be able to breathe because the oxygen would not be at the right mixture for our lungs. Besides, our night sky would look totally different, wouldn’t it Cornelius?”

  “Yes, of course it would,” said Cornelius. “We would be viewing the stars, the moon, the sun from a different angle. Everything would change for us. No, we most definitely are not on a differe
nt planet.”

  “Well, then, where the hell are we?” I asked. “If none of this stuff is the same as where we came from, then why? What’s the purpose for changing it all?”

  “I told you before,” said Colonel Al. “It all has to do with time. The time dimension has been tampered. Changes in that dimension must account for the changes in every substance here.”

  “But I told you,” I explained, “time does exist here; it has to! Everything we do or say is measured in time. It takes me ten seconds to walk across this room, five minutes to study things under a microscope, twenty minutes to walk to the cliff; it all takes time. Time exists, otherwise, we’d all be frozen, not able to move, stuck in one endless time frame.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Robert, “you think that time is a dimension?”

  “Yes, I do,” answered Colonel Al.

  “How?” Robert asked, wanting to know more about this dimension.

  “Because it is,” Colonel Al answered with no further explanation.

  “We touched on this at the University,” said Cornelius. “Well, at least, the philosophers did. They didn’t exactly communicate with us lowly scientists. Their studies were above mere earthly sciences. They wouldn’t even give me a nod of hello until they saw me gazing through a telescope. You see, my stargazing put me on the edge of their precious club.”

  “Geez, touchy,” I could see the built-up anger in Cornelius’ face. “I know what it’s like not to be part of the popular kids but you need to get over it. It’s over. Those guys are all dead now and look at you. Still alive and kicking and living in a world they never even knew existed.” Cornelius looked at me and laughed, shaking his head.

  “When you’re right, you’re right,” he said.

  “Will someone please explain to me what you’re all talking about,” Emma Lee seemed confused by all the scientific talk. It was no wonder, though, women from her time weren’t allowed to be educated, let alone know about anything to do with science.