by D. J. Holmes
***
As they begin to gather their gear for their travel, buckets of rain pour down, saturating Jacque and his soldiers. Looking up to the sky, Jacque thinks to himself, “Water like this is a good omen. I wonder what is being sent our way….”
Two point men have already begun to travel and are further ahead of the main garrison. While they are sitting by the side of a rock trying to escape the rain, they suddenly hear a loud, high-pitched, shrill sound, coming directly from the low hanging, dark, rain filled clouds.
“EEEAAAAAA!”
“What’s that?” a soldier asks as he searches the sky.
“I don’t know,” the other soldier answers as his eyes widen trying to find whatever it is that made the sound.
Hitting the ground close to the rock that the soldiers are using to escape from the rain, Running Deer declares, “Ouch…….that really hurt!”
Spooked one soldier asks, “Who are you?” as he looks in Running Deer’s direction.
At that same time Running Deer is thinking, “What strange language do they speak?” Making a guess as to what they asked, he answers back in the only language he knows. “My name is Running Deer.”
“What kind of a name is that? I’ve never seen a deer come from the sky. And you certainly don’t look like any deer that I have ever seen.”
“Maybe he’s a flying deer!” the other soldier states with a smile.
In response, the first soldier calmly accuses, “I bet he’s an English spy.”
“Yes, they must have a new machine that throws their soldiers over behind enemy lines.”
Running Deer continues to wonder how they can understand each other, when everyone is speaking different languages, but decides not to worry about it. “I wasn’t thrown through the sky, I fell from the sky. What is an English spy anyway?” Running Deer asks.
“Did you hear that? He doesn’t even know what an English spy is.”
“Actually, I know what a spy is. I just don’t know what you mean when you say English spy.”
“We are French, and you certainly don’t look like any French man that I have ever seen. So you must be English!”
“I have never heard the name, English. What is it?”
“The English are a group of people who have made war against us for almost a hundred years.”
“That’s a long time. Why have you allowed them to fight you for that long?”
“We haven’t had any choice. They have the best army.”
“…Army. What is an army?” he questions.
“A group of men who fight against you….”
“Why don’t you make peace with them?” Running Deer asks.
“The English don’t make peace. They want to control the whole world. That’s one of the reasons they are trying to take our country. We want it back. We’ll make peace with them as soon as we get our land back.”
The second soldier breaks in. “You just asked us why we didn’t make peace with them…only a spy asks questions like that. A spy will try anything to get us to stop fighting, and give up.”
“Look, if you want me to be a spy, then that’s what I am.”
“Did you hear that? He just admitted it. He’s a spy!”
“Whether he’s a spy or not, he definitely is not French! Let’s take him to our commander.” Grabbing both of Running Deer’s arms they tie him up with a rope.
“Let me go. I wasn’t serious… I was just tired of talking about this.”
“Why should we believe you? We’ll take you to Jacque and let him decide what to do with you.”
As they arrive at the strategy tent, Jacque is just getting on his horse to ride out to join all of the other soldiers. Together they will then travel to where the battle is to take place.
“Look! Jacque, we caught an enemy spy.”
Looking at Running Deer, and knowing these particular soldiers quite well, with his opinion of them quite low, Jacque says, “He doesn’t look like a spy to me. Where did you find him?”
“We were at the bend of the main road waiting for everyone else, and he comes hurdling through the air.”
“What?”
“Yes. We heard yelling come from the clouds… then we saw him hit the ground.”
Turning toward Running Deer, Jacque asks, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I am……..I think,” Running Deer answers as he rubs his leg and back. “I’m not who they think I am. I came to your country from the clouds.”
Looking at his two soldiers Jacque asks them to let everyone know that he will be with them shortly. After they leave he turns back to Running Deer and expresses, “…From the clouds?”
“Yes, my brother and I found the Hall of Corridors. It was from there that I was pushed through a portal.”
“…A portal?”
“Yes, you know an opening into each point of time in the history of the world.”
“You sound like someone that I would love to talk with. Sadly, I need to meet the rest of my soldiers, to battle against the English. Since you just came from the clouds, you probably don’t have a place to stay, do you?”
“No sir.”
“Well, we can’t leave you out here in all of this rain can we? In our village we make sure that all strangers are taken care of. You are a strong young man, and there are many marauding English soldiers that come by our village. While I am away would you please stay here with my wife and daughter and protect them? When I return, we will talk. You’ll be safe with them…. Jehanne…. Jehanne,” he calls.
“Yes Father?”
“Take this young man and find him a place to stay in the barn until I get back.”
“I will Father. Be safe.”
Riding away, he looks back and waves good-bye to his wife, as she stands by their front door waiving back to him.
Jehanne and Running Deer have an instant connection. It’s as if they have known each other forever. She motions for him to follow her and together they run to the barn to get out of the rain.
“You are drenched. Stay here and I will go to the house to get you one of my father’s shirts. You’re closer to his size…. Wait a minute. Maybe one of my brothers left some clothes behind. Wait here I’ll be right back.”
Running to her cottage, she asks her mother, “Mother, did Pierre leave any of his shirts behind when he left for war?”
“Why, Jehanne?”
“Father asked me to take a young man that his soldiers found, to the barn to wait until he gets back.”
“I did see you with someone, but thought that he was one of your father’s soldiers.
“No, father said that it would be fine for him to stay here while he is gone. He is soaked to the skin mother. He is going to catch cold unless we find him some dry clothes.”
While Jehanne and her mother are looking through the clothes that have been left behind by the boys Isabelle asks, “How old do you think this young man is?”
“He looks like he is about nineteen, or twenty.”
“So he’s just a few years older than you are, Jehanne.”
“Mother, I’ve never seen anyone around our village that looks like he does. He has the strongest shoulders, and the most beautiful long black hair that I have ever seen. And his eyes, they are so dark, yet they sparkle.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see this young man. Here is a shirt. Do you think it will fit him?”
“It looks perfect, Mother.”
“Good and here is a pair of pants to go with it.” Out of the corner of her eye she sees a drying cloth. “Jehanne, would you grab that cloth over there please? And just in case someone stops by while your father is gone, we must go together to give him these clothes, so that the villagers won’t get the wrong idea.”
Running to the barn, they open the door to find Running Deer shivering from the cold.
Isabelle quickly says, “Here are some dry clothes. Why don’t you go over behind that stall and change?”
Jehanne adds, “Here is s
omething with which to dry yourself,” and hands him the cloth.
While Running Deer is changing his clothes, both Jehanne and Isabelle begin asking him questions.
Isabelle asks him, “Where did you come from?”
“Two of your soldiers found me after I fell from the sky.”
“You came from the sky?”
“Well, actually, it was a portal in the Hall of Corridors that sent me to your time.”
Looking at each other with surprise and happiness, Jehanne and Isabelle have a complete feeling of security.
Running Deer comes out from behind the stall in his new, clean, dry clothes. “This feels so much better, Thank you.”
Isabelle instantly notices that with Running Deer, there is a sense that surrounds him, a mystique. His dark eyes seem to penetrate whatever he is looking at. An essence of honor surrounds him.
“You came from the Hall of Corridors?” she asks.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“Daniel came through the Hall of Corridors to help us when Jehanne was seriously sick.”
“When was Jehanne sick?”
“When she was a few months old, the weather had broken, and we had several neighbors come to visit her. A week later, all of the small children were getting extremely sick. Jehanne came down with a very high fever. Many of the children in our village died from this disease and we became concerned for Jehanne because, as her fever continued, she lost a great deal of weight. I slept on the floor by her bed and one evening I woke up to lights of different colors filling our cottage. Setting up, I wondered where the lights were coming from.
Then I realized that a man was standing by her bed. He said, “Don’t worry. Trust me. I am here to heal Jehanne….” With his lights he healed her. Turning around to introduce himself, he said that help would always be by her side….That was the only time that she has ever been sick in her whole life. He said that his name is Daniel, and that he had come through the Hall of Corridors. Do you know him?”
“No. My brother and I were in the Hall of Corridors for just a short period of time, when a huge fish pushed me through a portal. I landed here. I don’t know where my brother is.”
“Running Deer, this woman who has been asking you all these questions, and telling you my story, is my mother, Isabelle,” Jehanne says with a smile.
“I’m glad to meet you.”
“Your name is Running Deer?”
“Yes.”
“From this day forward, your name is going to be Pierre,” Isabelle states.
“But Mother, that is brother’s name!” Jehanne comments with shock.
“I know. That’s why I picked it. Your brother is off to war right now. We’ll just tell the villagers that he has returned for a short while.”
“And what will we tell them, when they question why he doesn’t look like Pierre?”
“He does have black hair.”
“Yes, but Pierre never wore it that long.”
“Jehanne, he has been to war. Men change when they go to war. He now likes wearing his hair to his waist. That’s all that we’ll say.”
“And everything else?”
“We’ll just say the war had a strange affect on him. Otherwise, the villagers will not allow him to stay with two women alone, while your father is gone. And Jehanne, I don’t want him to go through all the teasing that you have endured all your life, just because you like to go to church, and because you are always so nice to everyone. The villagers will use any excuse to make fun of someone. And with a name like Running Deer, they will never let him live in peace!”
“Mother, you are so smart. Pierre. Pierre will be his name.”
“Pierre? What kind of a name is that?” Running Deer asks. “If you don’t like Running Deer, what about Yellow Dog, Walking Turkey, Jumping Rabbit, or even Tribal River?”
Listening in shock, with their mouths open, Isabelle questions, “They are names of people?”
“Yes, they are names of my tribal brothers.”
Trying to figure out if he is joking or not, she adamantly says, “Ah…No! Thank you, but we need a French name.”
“What does French mean?”
“The name of our country is France. Our language is French. In answer to your question, French is the name of the language of our country.”
Pointing to each woman he says, your name is Isabelle?”
“Yes.”
“And your name is Jehanne?”
“Yes.”
“They are very pretty names, but I’ve never heard names like that before. For women, I can remember, Mother Hot Ash, Mother Red Rose, or like my own mother’s name, Snow Flower.”
“Those names are names of women that you know?”
“Yes, they are all names in my tribe. What is the name you called me?”
“Pierre.”
“Pierre, huh…” Suddenly his stomach starts growling, “Do you have anything to eat?”
“Yes, come with me to our cottage. There’s plenty of food for you.”
***
“Daniel, Running Deer has made it to his destination. He is with a great family. Hopefully, Jon and Julia will be able to find him.”
“Thank you, Treysen. Do you have a visual on Jon and Julia yet?”
“They haven’t left the portal yet, Daniel.”
“Ok, let me know when they do.”
“I will, as soon as I see them step onto land.”