by Vella Munn
Despite the dark, she easily found his mouth. She clung to his neck and sealed her lips to his. She wanted to slide her tongue between his teeth but held back because maybe things hadn’t been done that way in his world, his time. He might be shocked or feel invaded. It was so important to share herself with him in the right way, but what was right?
What did he want from a lover?
Lover. Still holding on to him, she fought the impact of that word. She had no idea what had happened to the mother of his child, whether he’d loved and now mourned her. He’d spoken of sexual relations between Modoc and white. Everything she’d ever read about primitive people made her believe that the need to ensure the survival of the species and family and societal demands dictated the role and expectation of marriage. If that was true, then people married because it was expected of them, not because of something as vague as the notion of love.
Was Loka capable of loving a woman?
When he laced his fingers through her hair and held her head firmly in place, she felt trapped and willing and on fire. What did love matter? Making love was enough—making love with a warrior from another era.
“Have you been promised to a man?” he asked, his lips still against hers.
“No.”
“A woman and yet not promised?”
She pulled back a little, tried to read what was in his eyes. “It’s different for my people, Loka. Today men and women marry only when they love each other.”
He grunted but said nothing. She waited, hoping he would press his mouth against hers again, but he didn’t, and in the few seconds apart, she lost her courage. Afraid to do anything that might not please him, she stayed where she was, aware that he could wrench her head in any direction he wanted simply by increasing his grip on her hair.
She wasn’t afraid of him—nothing that simple. Rather, she felt as if she’d stepped inside a cave to find a fully grown grizzly there. The bear, secure in the fact that this was his domain and his strength far outstripped hers, simply stared at her.
Loka was doing the same. She didn’t need daylight to know that.
“What—” She swallowed and tried again. “What are you thinking?”
He didn’t answer. Whether he didn’t have a reply or had chosen not to share it with her didn’t matter; at least that’s what she tried to tell herself. His manhood, ready for lovemaking or sex or whatever he chose to call it, pressed into her. He had to be battling need; the fact that he didn’t simply take her should have helped. It would have if she hadn’t needed him so much.
Nothing mattered. Nothing except the two of them.
Although it took two tries, she finally remembered how to command the muscles in her arms to move. Reaching out blindly, she found his waist. It put her in mind of granite, yet was covered by deceptively silken skin. His flesh should be rough, but it wasn’t. It was almost as if the elements had known his life wouldn’t be an easy one and had been gentle with him.
She couldn’t be gentle.
She ran her fingers up his side, rolling the tips over one rib after the other while his muscles jumped and his breath caught. His grip on her hair increased; she felt the need to control him as he controlled her. Inch by inch she explored and sought to command him. Waited for him to take her. Wanted that. Risking everything, she leaned into him and lapped her tongue over his naked breast. He shuddered, released her hair, caught her around the waist and held her against him. She imagined herself struggling, fighting and yet not fighting his advances, playing a game for which there was only one end. She had no fight in her, only hunger.
The thought of laying herself out on the hard ground under him filled her with new excitement. He would mount her. She would look up at him with eyes that held back nothing, which begged him to take her.
And they—and they…
A sound teased at the edge of her awareness. When she first heard it, she tossed it aside, but it returned again, familiar and wild. Part of everything she felt.
“Wolf,” Loka whispered.
Wolf. A creature as impossible as he was. “He—he’s still here?”
“Wolf,” Loka repeated and after that, she couldn’t understand anything he said. Still tight and dangerous and alive against him, she heard and felt the sharp, guttural sounds that was his language. Loka was speaking to Wolf. And by the changing cadence of the animal’s howls, she had no doubt that Wolf was responding.
Man? Warrior? No. Loka was more than that. When he stepped away from her, she didn’t try to follow him. Whether it was because she now feared him she couldn’t say.
Wouldn’t admit.
Chapter 10
Long after he’d released Tory, Loka sat looking out at the night. He knew she was watching him. He felt her gaze along his backbone, sensed it searching beyond muscle and bone and wondered if she was trying to reach his heart. Still, he didn’t acknowledge her.
Wolf had come to them—to him—again. Wolf with its wisdom and warnings. If Cho-ocks had still been alive, Loka would have brought gifts to the shaman and asked him to explain the meaning behind the haunting howls. But Cho-ocks had been taken far from here, along with the rest of the Maklaks. There was no one to speak to—except for Tory, who had touched his soul and left it weak and hungry when he didn’t dare let that happen.
Wolf wasn’t the only one who had found them. No matter how often he tried to tell himself that owls and coyotes always called out at night and thus did not always foretell death, he couldn’t ignore the warnings of danger.
He had brought a white woman to this place where warriors for untold generations had come to complete their spirit quests. It angered him to watch the enemy climb up here, but he’d been helpless to stop them. Now he’d done what he never believed he would. More than that, he’d come within a heartbeat of surrendering himself to this woman who carried General Canby’s blood.
Enough! In the morning, he would take her back down to where she belonged. Never again would he tell her of ancient beliefs. No more would he give her access to his heart.
He would be strong. And the next time Owl and Coyote sang of death, he would not ask whether the song was for him. If it was, it was because he had no place in today.
No longer would he search for the tunnel from past to present.
Daylight was just beginning to touch Mount Shasta— Yainax—when Tory sat up. Every muscle in her body ached from trying to sleep on rocks and brush, but it wasn’t physical discomfort that brought her to her feet.
Something had taken Loka from her. Whenever she thought of Wolf and his cry, she came close to convincing herself that the warrior had been pulled from her side by whatever message the predator brought with him. After all, Wolf no longer lived here. He couldn’t possibly be, and yet he was. The sound must have come from another time, been so compelling that Loka with his ageless wisdom had been unable to ignore it.
But it wasn’t just Wolf. Maybe—she stretched and looked around for Loka—maybe it was the relentless sounds that Owl and Coyote had made throughout the night. Loka believed that those creatures warned of danger and death; if she shared his belief, she’d have been distracted, too.
But she didn’t and she hadn’t and therein lay the difference between them.
One of the differences.
Loka lay curled on his side, his body half-hidden by a rabbitbrush. If she’d been thinking, she would have found some sage to sleep under because the ground looked softer there. He could have pointed that out to her but no, he’d left her alone. Wanting to keep distance between them?
She should have walked to the fire lookout.
As the first rays of morning touched Yainax, she again thought about what Loka had told her. His people believed that Kumookumts had been sitting on top of the massive peak when he decided to make the mountains and valleys, streams and lakes, animals and humans. If she’d run to the lookout and spent the night with a roof over her head, she’d have missed this.
And maybe inadvertently jeopardize
d Loka’s safety.
Making sure she kept a fair amount of distance between herself and Loka, she climbed over rocks until she had an uninterrupted view of the world below. It remained sheathed in darkness, waiting for the sun to wake it. Although it was summer, a thin frost clung to the ground at her feet. She probably wouldn’t warm up until the sun reached this spot, and it first had to kiss the mountains dominated by Yainax. Cold as she was, she couldn’t help thinking about what Loka and the other men must have seen when their searches for manhood brought them here.
As she watched and waited, she thought of Dr. Grossnickle, the four years she’d spent at the university as an undergraduate and then two more while she pursued her master’s degree. Everything had seemed so logical then, short-term sacrifices made so she could prepare herself for a career she loved. She’d deliberately avoided any serious personal relationships, and although she was sometimes lonely, she usually didn’t have roommates because she didn’t want to be distracted from her studies. Her father had applauded her dedication; her mother had worried she was letting her chances for a personal life slip by.
Her mother had been right. She was sitting here—alone—looking at a display of nature that took her breath away.
She felt as if she were splintering into a thousand pieces, becoming little more than the tiny particles of dust being borne along by the wind. Fighting to hold on to reality, she tried to remember what her apartments had looked like, the route she usually took from the library to the anthropology department, how she felt the day Dr. Grossnickle chose her as his assistant. She couldn’t hold on to any of that. This land, this morning, had too powerful a hold on her.
She was wrong; she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t say when she first became aware that Loka had joined her. What she did sense was shivering anticipation, fear that a single word from her might destroy this moment.
He sat beside her, his shoulder briefly brushing hers, warming her. Heating her. After the way he’d left last night, she didn’t expect him to sit beside her. His body, cool and yet already being warmed by the summer sun, called to her in ways both subtle and blatant. Bit by glorious bit the day became brighter, the world below and around them more sharply defined.
She deliberately kept from looking at the fire tower because she wanted to experience this morning exactly as Loka had when he’d come here seeking Eagle. Some of the natural trenches on the valley floor were coated by a fine mist, which had the effect of sanding away the land’s hard edges. She wondered if birds of prey saw the same thing she did, wondered if Loka had ever brought his son up here.
Tory knew she would never forget this moment.
“I feel so peaceful,” she whispered when she could no longer hold her reaction inside. She looked over at Loka, half-afraid he would get up and leave. Instead, he simply nodded. “It’s as if time has no meaning. As if we could come here a thousand years from now or have been here a thousand years ago and it would be the same.”
“The same and yet different.”
It struck her that she no longer had to concentrate in order to understand him. “Different because it isn’t Modoc land anymore? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Eh.”
“Eh?”
“Yes. This is no longer Maklaks land. I am the only one left.”
No! Don’t say that. She wanted to talk to him about Black Schonchin, the old Modoc man she’d met, but she’d tried before, and he hadn’t wanted to listen. Thinking to make him feel less alone, she took his hand and placed it on her knee. The moment she did, she knew she’d made a mistake; the weight of his hand on her increased her awareness of him tenfold. “The Land Of Burned Out Fires,” she managed. “Looking at this—” she nodded at the lower hills now coming into sharper definition “—I can’t help thinking it should be called something else. There’s nothing dead about this. Nothing—”
“The Smiles Of God.”
“What?”
“That is what my father and my father’s father and his father called this land. The Smiles Of God.”
“Oh. That’s beautiful.” She blinked back tears and concentrated until the panorama below was no longer blurred. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that.”
“The enemy do not understand everything.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about your world, Loka. So much.”
He gave her a sharp look, but she didn’t care. Maybe there would always be a schism between them. If that was true, it might as well be faced full-on right now, before she gave any more of herself to him.
“There is much I do not know about your world,” he said.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes. I must. You know that. But not this morning.” He turned his attention back to the flowing, golden sunrise. He didn’t say any more, but he didn’t have to. His eyes and the way he held his body told her he was thinking about what it had been like when he’d come here with others from his time.
As the shadows lifted, she was able to pinpoint the park headquarters, which looked like a child’s toy because it was so far away. She wondered if anyone had noted that she hadn’t spent the night at her cabin. Probably Fenton, she thought ruefully. The man’s attempts to use her as a go-between for an introduction to Dr. Grossnickle were less than subtle, not that she could think of anything different he might have done. He would want to know where she’d been. And if he found out—
“I live in an apartment in Seattle,” she said softly. “I’d like to buy a house, but I’m not sure I’m going to stay in the same area. Until things settle down for me, it doesn’t make much sense to—”
“Apartment?”
How could she possibly explain about one living quarter stacked upon another when he had all this to roam? But he wasn’t as free as she wanted him to be. “Where I sleep and eat when I’m not on-site.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You do not like it?”
“No,” she answered thoughtfully, “I don’t. Not really. I need my own piece of land, some dirt to call my own.”
He gave up his study of the landscape. “That is what I will never understand,” he said. “That one believes he can own land.”
Because she knew most Indians had had no concept of land ownership, she wasn’t sure she could ever get him to fully comprehend what she was trying to say. “I want to put down roots. I’m not a nomad, although I enjoy seeing new places. Loka, this butte is where you came to find Eagle. He gives you a sense of peace, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“I think, for me, having my own property would do the same thing. The world has changed since your time.” The words, highlighting how little remained for him, made her shudder. “Your first time. These days, there’s no way a person can so much as claim a rock or clump of grass without paying for it.”
“That is not right.” He leaned down, picked up a chunk of lava and held it out to her. “This was created by Kumookumts. He also created the first Maklaks, the first bear, all lakes and streams. If I say this is my rock, then I am saying I am more than a rock or bear or lake, and that is not so. We are all the same. I honor this rock and it honors me. Those are things about me that I cannot change. This is why I am not sure I will ever find my place in today.”
A few days ago she might have laughed at the notion of honoring a rock. All the time she’d been studying anthropology and then earning a living putting anthropological theory to use, the cynic in her had stood off to one side. It no longer did. “What else do you believe?” she asked. “What did your parents and the shaman teach you?”
Something dark flickered in his eyes. She’d asked a great deal of him; he had to weigh the wisdom of revealing more of his world. Would it make it any easier for him if she told him that having him sitting beside her, hearing the sound of his voice, watching expressions dance in his eyes, meant as much and maybe even more than any words?
“Wolf?”
“What?”
“Wolf,” he repeated.
“He trusts you.”
“I want you to trust me,” she whispered. Dangerous as she knew it to be, she wanted to lay her head on his shoulder. “Trust me enough to tell me more about your beliefs. If I understand, it’ll help me bridge the gap for you.”
“Bridge the gap?”
“Walk into the present.”
He straightened. The gesture brought him so close to her that she felt the fine hairs on his upper arm brush against hers. Something like a low electrical current hummed into life.
“You will not ridicule?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Because others did.”
Missionaries and religious fundamentalists had tried to convert the Modocs. Loka must have bitter memories of being told that his traditions and beliefs were nothing more than primitive superstition. “I’m not them, Loka,” she insisted. “Remember, I’ve seen Eagle. I’ve heard Wolf.”
He was silent for so long that she thought she’d lost him, said something wrong. Then, dividing his attention between her and the horizon, he told her about Ga’hga the heron, who had been brought into being by Kiuka, the first and most powerful of all medicine men. Kiuka had fashioned Ga’hga as a joke, believing the Maklaks would be so busy laughing at the long-necked bird that they’d never catch it. Kumookumts had exploded with anger when he saw what Kiuka had done and created Tusasa’s the skunk and then commanded Tusasa’s to crawl into bed with Kiuka. The next spring, hoping to improve their relationship, Ga’hga had asked Kumookumts to create a mate for him. After Kumookumts demonstrated his superiority by fashioning many herons from the mud at the bottom of the mother lake, he took a small handful of mud and turned it into Gowwa’ the swallow. Kiuka hadn’t known what to say, how to react, but from then on the medicine man never challenged Kumookumts.
Tory listened in awe. According to what little had been pieced together of the Modocs’ early beliefs, she knew they believed Kumookumts was responsible for all creatures, but the mythology had lacked specifics. Now Loka was telling her that Ke’is the rattlesnake had come into being because Kumookumts had known his time on earth was coming to an end. Ke’is had been the result of Kumookumts’s anger. Somehow, the Modocs discovered that if they left a swallow’s egg outside a den of rattlesnakes, the snakes would be placated and leave the Modocs alone.
