Читать книгу The Man From Forever - Dawn Flindt - Страница 7

The warrior’s body woke, one slow, gliding movement at a time. He became aware of sound—a distant, half-remembered whisper of wind sliding its restless way over the land. He remembered—remembered closing himself in the cave’s darkness beside his dying son, swallowing the shaman’s bitter potion, feeling strength flow out of his body, losing control of his thoughts. Losing the thoughts themselves.

How long ago had that been?

He lay on the bear pelt he’d spread on the ground for his forever sleep. The air moving almost imperceptibly over his naked body felt warm, yet not quite alive—ancient air. He was in Wa’hash, the most sacred of places.

Strength flowed into his war-honed muscles. He gave thanks to Eagle for the power in his body. Cho-ocks the shaman had been wrong. The mix of ground geese bone, bunchgrass and other things unknown hadn’t ended him after all. He couldn’t stay in the underworld with his son; something—or was it someone?—had brought him back.

Back to empty-bellied children, despairing women and men ready for battle.

The anger that had fed him and his chief and the others during that cruel-cold winter of 1873 returned in powerful waves. They were Maklaks—the Modocs—proud people living on land given to them by Kumookumts, their creator. The white skins had had no right to bring their cattle and horses and fences here. The army had had no right to force them to live on a reservation with their enemy, the Klamath. But those things had happened.

Sitting, he tried to hold on to his anger, but his body tightened into a brief, pain-filled knot. He breathed through it, kneaded his calves and thighs, then forced himself to stand. His belly felt utterly empty, his flesh unwashed, but those things didn’t matter. Soon his eyes would make the most of the sliver of light coming in through the small opening.

Another kind of hunger touched him with hot, familiar fingers. It pulled him away from urgent questions about what had brought him back to life. His manhood signaled a message that he’d learned to master during the long, cold months of hiding and fighting. Either he’d forgotten how to keep need reined in or something was—

Something or someone.

Like a wolf after a scent, he left his son’s bones and went in search of light, taking with him the knife his grandfather’s grandfather had created from the finest black rock. His legs unerringly led him down the narrow tunnel that led to the surface and, hopefully, understanding. When he reached the place where surface and tunnel met, he picked up the ladder, but the rawhide that held the wood in place was dry and brittle. Although he had never cowered from an enemy’s bullet, he shuddered now. It took many seasons for rawhide to become useless.

After freeing the sturdiest pole, he used it to shove aside the rock that covered the hole. Then he sprang upward, hooked his hands over the rocky ground and pulled himself up. Bright sunlight assaulted his eyes. The wind brought with it the sweet, endless smell of sage, and for a moment he believed that nothing had changed. Peace didn’t last long enough.

The enemy.

Cautious, he rose to a low crouch. The Land Of Burned Out Fires was as it had always been, stark and yet beautiful, home to the Maklaks, rightful place of things sacred and ancient. He could see nearly as far as he could run in a long day, the horizon a union of sky and earth. Knife gripped in fingers strong enough to build a fine tule canoe, he balanced his weight on his powerful thighs and spun in a slow circle. Shock sliced into him, almost making him bellow.

The mother lake that had always fed his people had shrunk! Shock turned into rage, then beat less fiercely as the emotion that had brought him out here reasserted itself.

The enemy.

Only, if he could believe his senses, this unknown thing wasn’t a soldier or settler. The knowledge tore at his belief in who and what he was in a way that had never happened before. The morning the army had set fire to the tribe’s winter village, he’d felt as if the energy of a thousand volcanoes had been unleashed inside him. This, too, was a volcano—heat and fire.

Sucking in air, he forced himself to seek the source of the heat. For a heartbeat he thought he’d spotted a deer or antelope, but his keen eyesight soon brought him the truth.

A woman was out there, so far away that he could tell little about her except that she was unarmed, lean and long, graceful. She walked alone, stepping carefully and yet effortlessly over lava rock and around brush sharp enough to tear flesh.

The enemy, this woman?

She stopped, head cocked and slightly uplifted. Her arms remained at her side, yet there was a tension to them that struck a familiar chord inside him. He viewed the world of his childhood and his ancestors’ childhood through untrusting eyes. She was doing the same, trying to make sense of something that kept itself hidden from her.

Let her be afraid.

He slipped around rocks and bunchgrass until he was close enough that if he had bow and arrow, he could bring her down. She was too skinny to survive a harsh winter, and yet he found something to his liking about that. He imagined her under him, arms and legs in constant motion. She would wrap herself around him, nipping, digging her fingers into his back until the volcano she’d turned him into exploded. She’d absorb his energy, share hers with him, her cries echoing in the distance.

Angry, he forced away the dangerous thought. This was no willing Maklaks maiden. The strange woman wore clothes he’d never seen, her sturdy shoes made from an unknown material. She didn’t belong here, was so stupid that she stood alone and vulnerable on land fought over by Indian and white.

Didn’t belong here? Yes, her bare arms didn’t know what it meant to be assaulted by winter cold and summer heat, and yet she looked around her with wanting and loneliness, her eyes and soft mouth telling him of the turmoil inside her, tapping a like unrest inside him. Had her emotions reached him somehow and pulled him from the place where he believed he would spend eternity?

Why?