The Man from Forever

by Vella Munn

  Loka continued to stretch his arms outward. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes focused on nothing except the black-and-white bird. He continued his chant, his prayer, whatever it was, and time no longer mattered. He could be doing this tonight or a thousand years ago. The message remained the same: that bird and man loved each other.

  She wasn’t part of what they shared, could never fully understand.

  The knowledge made her weep.

  “We will spend the night here.”

  Still numb, Tory nodded. She watched as Loka handed her a water-filled gourd, some kind of ground meal, a strip of dried meat. She guessed that at least an hour had passed since the eagle—Eagle—had left. In that time Loka hadn’t spoken, and she’d been unable to think of a single way to break the silence. The sun had set, colors spilling out over the world with such vibrancy that she’d nearly cried again. Loka had continued to stand on the flat rock, his attention fixed on distant Yainax until he could no longer see it. She remembered sitting down, rubbing away a cramp in her calf, thirst, the realization that she would be content to spend the rest of her life on this plateau overlooking what had once been Loka’s world.

  Just before it became completely dark, he’d left his rock and disappeared into the shadows. She’d felt a moment of panic at the prospect of being left alone, but then the first star had emerged, and she’d taken comfort from its cool glow.

  Loka had returned with food and water. She’d wanted to ask him how often he came here and met with Eagle, but didn’t.

  They’d eaten in silence. When the moon came out, she’d studied him as he gazed at the stars. Never, never would she forget how he looked then.

  Loka was ageless, wind and sun, sky and mountains. She’d known men who wore their physical strength as if it were a badge, who threatened others with their size, who thought of themselves and their prowess as one and the same. Loka had taken his strength from the mountains. The muscles that roped his body were for one purpose: survival. This land, this harsh and beautiful land, knew no mercy. Only those strong enough and brave enough to face it head-on would live.

  Loka was built for survival. And he was looking for his place in the present.

  Her mouth dried, and her body felt newly alive. She wished she were stronger, because maybe if she were, Loka would think her more worthy of him. She wanted to watch him hunt. She wished she’d been here when he’d accepted Eagle as his guardian spirit. She wanted to show him her world and yet was glad they were in his, at least for tonight.

  For maybe a half hour now the stars had been pushing free of the darkness one by one until they littered the sky. The moon was the last to arrive. It made its appearance slowly, exotically, pulling her attention briefly from Loka and putting her in touch with what had always existed. The moon’s color spilled over the top of Spirit Mountain, bathed it in silver and gold and stole her breath.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Loka stood with his back to her, moonlight shimmering down over him like an endless waterfall. “There wouldn’t be anything without the sun, and yet the moon…”

  “My people knew it was a gift.”

  “I love it up here.” She wanted her words to reach him, but it was nearly impossible to speak aloud, to think of anything except making love to him. “I don’t ever want to leave.”

  “I know.”

  She watched him turn and come closer. Her mind fixed on arms and legs, hips and thighs and chest. She remembered the feel and excitement and smell and promise of the first day of true spring, thought of sunlight caressing ice and freeing it to run over the land. Her lungs were starved for oxygen and yet she knew air wasn’t enough.

  Only he would be enough.

  Ever.

  “You’re incredible,” she heard herself say. “Magnificent.”

  “Magnificent?” He was less than five feet away, all but naked, armed with a knife that had been in existence for generations. Known only to her.

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re who you are. You belong here. Nowhere except here.”

  “No longer. The world has changed. I must become part of that, somehow.”

  She tried to pull the words apart to see if there was sorrow or regret in them, but five feet had become four. She’d never felt so overwhelmed in her life. The reality of being consumed by a man who hadn’t so much as touched her spread through her until she could do nothing but accept it.

  “Why are we here?” she managed. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Chapter 9

  In the distance, she could just make out the outline of the structure that served as the fire watch. Although she was grateful that it was there and that people were on duty making sure neither lightning or man-made fire destroyed the beauty below her, she couldn’t put her mind to what that other world was like—not when Loka stood over her.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered. “Maybe I should be. Maybe I will be before—” No, she couldn’t say before this was over, not when he was the only thing she wanted in life, might ever want. “I need to understand where you came from, why you decided to defy the enemy along with Keintepoos and the others, whether you killed—whether you killed any of the enemy.”

  “They were not always my enemy.”

  She waited for his simple words to fully sink in, but how could she make sense of them when she knew so little about him? “Why not?” was the only thing she could think to say.

  He sighed, a low sound that melted into the backdrop of night creatures coming to life. “You want to hear this? It was long ago—I was only a child.”

  She tried to imagine him as a child, but the man he’d become dominated her. “Yes, I do. Where were you born? Did you have brothers and sisters? I want—” She raked a restless hand through her hair, aware that his attention never wavered from what she was doing. “I want to hear everything.”

  She hoped he would sit down. That way at least he would no longer loom over her, but he seemed to need to stand. Moonlight eased away some of the harshness in his features but left so much in mystery that she couldn’t read his expression, or his mood. He lifted an arm and pointed off into the distance. “I was born at Gowwa’, the Swallow place. After my parents exchanged their marriage gifts, my father built a new wickiup near my mother’s family.

  “When I was old enough, my father taught me how to hunt. The mother lake was filled with ducks and geese then in numbers you will never know. In the winter, the sky sometimes turned black because so many eagles made their home there. We built canoes and seined for fish.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm, and she imagined that he was throwing a net into the water.

  “My brothers and I learned to spear fish from watching our uncles. They told us not to make noise, but we boasted and made fun of each other until the fish swam away. It was good then.” He sounded wistful. “Innocent children playing at being men. We went to the settlers’ houses, and they gave us food. When their horses and cattle strayed, we brought them back to them.”

  “You got along with the settlers?”

  “For many years. Until there were too many of them.”

  She couldn’t imagine this area being considered overrun with people, but Loka was used to sharing it with antelope and bears, not more human beings. “When you were around the settlers before things went wrong, what was it like?”

  She couldn’t tell whether he was frowning or not, but something in the way he held himself told her she’d asked something he didn’t want to answer. His arms hung at his sides. Still, she sensed a tension in him that might explode at any moment. Irrationally, she wanted to face that tension, feel the explosion.

  “I was a child, Tory. I did not see the world in the way my grandfather did. Now I know he was the one with wisdom.”

  “He was afraid of the settlers?”

  “Not afraid. My grandfather never knew fear.”

  She wasn’t sure that could be said of anyone, but Loka was remembering the man from a child’s perspective. �
�What then? What did he say when you and the other children went to the settlers?”

  “That we were foolish for not heeding the call of the owl.”

  The call of the owl. Turning his comment around in her mind, she was struck by how smoothly Loka bridged ancient and modern worlds. “What does that mean?”

  “That someone will die. Owls, coyotes, loons all carry the knowledge of death within them. In those days their cries filled the night air as never before and the grandfathers sat listening to them. But the young people, foolish children like myself, cared only that the settlers would give us sweets and other foods that we had never tasted. We thought that no harm could come from someone who let us ride their horses, who welcomed us into their homes.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for what happened, Loka. You were only a curious boy.”

  “A boy! I had known eight winters when I first asked a settler to place me on his mule. I thought it was a wonderful thing, that this settler had wealth far beyond that of my parents. I saw my parents as less because of that. I was wrong.”

  She could hear him breathing and knew that he was, not for the first time, asking himself how he could have been so blind. “You didn’t know—there was no way you could have known the Modocs would go to war with the whites. It—there was so much misunderstanding.”

  He turned away from her, presented her with the faint outline of his back. He was looking at what he could see of the moonlight-bathed world below them. Getting to her feet, she stood as close to him as she dared. The landscape seemed endless, timeless. Except for the distant blip of light that was the fire lookout, she might have been transported back in time thousands of years.

  Was that why Loka had wanted to come here today, so he could escape all signs of today’s world? Had he brought her with him because he wanted her to be part of this misty time? Because he’d decided she could be trusted?

  She wished she believed that. “You speak English very well,” she whispered. She didn’t want to break the charged silence, but if she didn’t pull as much as she could from him now, the opportunity might be lost. “Who taught you?”

  He’d glanced down at her, but now he went back to staring at what seemed to be an entire universe. “I did not stay a foolish child, Tory. I saw things which I did not like—soldiers taking Modoc and Klamath women for their pleasure. Indian men selling their wives for liquor. Hearing my chief being called by a name not his own. I asked my grandfather why this was, and he said that both soldiers and Indians were playing a dangerous game.”

  “One side is never totally right or wrong.”

  “No. It is never that simple. I thought much on what he had said. I came here, sought Eagle for my spirit because Eagle is filled with wisdom. I prayed and he came to me. I opened my heart to him, and he showed me cattle who had died because they were trapped at the end of a canyon. They could have turned around and gone back where they came from, but they did not have the wisdom to look another way. That was when I knew I had to learn all I could about the white man. So I would never be trapped by him.”

  He’d made the telling sound so simple; she had no doubt that he’d seen a lesson for his own life in what had happened to the cattle. Surrounded by night punctuated only by stars and the moon and song from unseen throats, she stared up at him, recorded his dark form to her memory, knew she would never forget tonight. Or him.

  “I went to a rancher, a man who treated Maklaks children with kindness. I asked him to teach me his words. And when he had, I asked him to show me the meaning of his talking leaves.”

  Talking leaves? She nearly asked him what he meant before remembering that that was what the Modocs had called writing. Loka looked as if he had stepped out of a primitive piece of history, but because she’d heard his wisdom, she knew he wasn’t. Now, knowing he was literate, she asked herself if he was capable of bridging the gap between his time and hers. He wanted to; he’d already told her that.

  “What did you think of what you read? Did it open up a new world for you?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, but she couldn’t see enough of his features to understand his expression. “I had my world,” he said. “I did not need another one to open.”

  “It’s an expression. I just meant—what kind of things did he have you read?”

  “His Bible. Books. Newspapers. I did not understand everything that was in them, but I tried. I was eager to learn. Sometimes the things in the talking leaves frightened me. To know that the white men were like the winter snow, endless… Jerome was a patient man. He said I should take what I was learning back to my village. I think he knew I was not just a curious child, that what he was giving me should not be kept inside him.”

  “It sounds as if he became your friend.”

  “Friend?” Loka whispered the word. “Yes. And then Ha-kar-Jim killed him.”

  “Ha—Hooker Jim you mean?”

  “That is what your people called him.”

  “I remember the name. He was there the day my great-great-grandfather was murdered. And before that, he was the leader of the young braves who avenged the burning of your winter village by killing every settler they could.”

  “Yes.” Loka turned and started toward her, once again he dominated her world. “That was when Jerome was killed.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “Feel?”

  Was she pushing things too far? Ripping apart a fragile relationship? She had to know where he’d stood emotionally when war broke out. Keeping her voice as calm as possible, she asked if he thought Ha-kar-Jim had been right in leading the attack on unsuspecting settlers.

  “He wanted me to go with him.”

  “Did he? Did you?”

  “No.”

  She felt weak with relief, but it wasn’t enough to let things end this way. “Did you want to?”

  “A part of me, yes. The soldiers burned our village, destroyed our winter food, turned us into fugitives living in caves because we could not live with the Klamaths. When I heard children crying in fear and hunger, when my son clung to me asking why he couldn’t return home, yes, my heart was full of hate.”

  “But one of those men had taken you into his home.” Why was she doing this to him?

  “Yes.” He held up both hands as if balancing a weight in each one. “There were two of me then. One Maklaks, one white. But my blood is Maklaks. I could not kill my friend, but I could hate those who set fire to our village.”

  Much as she wanted to go on looking at him, she couldn’t prevent her head from dropping forward. For Ha-kar-Jim, the decision to attack had been an easy one. Maybe it had been no different for the young brave when he aimed his rifle at the members of the peace commission, but Loka had been ruled by reason, and by his heart. “Was that what it was like for you throughout the war, feeling as if you were being torn in two directions?”

  “No.”

  Surprised by his answer, she looked up. He’d come closer. Power and strength surrounded him, blocking her from every other emotion. She continued to stare at him, once again shaken by how much a part of his world he seemed. She’d always enjoyed exploring new areas, learning about different parts of the country, but never before had she thought in terms of whether she blended into wherever she went. She’d come close to feeling at home when she was on the coast, but nothing she’d experienced could possibly touch the way Loka meshed with his surroundings. She wanted—needed—to share that belief with him. The only way she possibly could was by touching him.

  It was harder to stand than she thought it would be. True, she was tired from the long climb, but physical weariness had only a little to do with the way she felt. Once she was standing in front of him, she felt a little stronger; her body had somehow tapped into his seemingly endless strength.

  “You do not like my words?” he asked. “You do not want to hear that my heart remains Maklaks and that stepping into today may be impossible?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

&n
bsp; Then what? Although he remained silent, she sensed his question. She couldn’t provide him with an answer, couldn’t speak the words that would let him know how vulnerable she was to his presence. But maybe she didn’t need to.

  She couldn’t say which of them reached for the other first. It might have begun as a reaction to the sound of an owl hooting; it might have been the moon. And then maybe the world beyond the two of them had nothing to do with her reaction.

  She fit inside the shelter of his arms. She hadn’t known, had thought that surely people from two different worlds wouldn’t be able to mesh. The air had begun to cool, but with his body shielding her from the breeze, she was no longer aware of the chill that had been nipping at the edges of her consciousness. The faint light from the fire tower seemed to wink in time with the stars. The sounds of animals, birds and insects became part of her sense of isolation.

  Her awareness of Loka.

  She wanted to hear his voice rumbling out from his chest, but if he spoke, she might be reminded of how incredible it was that they’d found each other, how impossible to ask that it might last beyond tonight.

  Tonight was all she had. She would take from it as if she were starving.

  She sensed that he was looking down at her, felt his hands running slowly up and down her arms. The message in his caress was simple; he, too, felt awed by what had happened between them. She needed to taste his lips and show him—show him what? How things were done in her world?