by R. D. Brady
“Anything?” Jake asked from next to her.
Laney looked over at him. “No. And I don’t know how Uncle Patrick can still be listening to that man. He’s got a stronger stomach than I do.”
“He seemed to think there was something special about the name of Nathaniel’s church.”
Laney nodded. “Yeah, but if you’re asking me what it is, I don’t know. Lambs are important in Christianity—as sacrifices, as analogies. Even Jesus was called ‘lamb’ because of his sacrifice. But as to what exactly that has to do with all of this…” Laney shrugged.
“What was all that with Northgram’s wife?” Jake asked, interrupting her thoughts. “How did Nathaniel’s mom know Henry was a nephilim? Jen said she mentioned giants ruling America in ancient times.”
“Oh, there were definitely giants thousands of years ago,” Laney said distractedly. Why would Nathaniel take the kids? What was his angle? Did his father and the Council have something to do with this?
And why Max? It couldn’t be because of his abilities. There was no way they could know about that.
“Earth to Laney.”
Laney looked over at Jake. “Sorry, what?”
“You said giants existed thousands of years ago.”
“Right,” she said. “Do you think—”
Jake put up his hand. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain that little comment.”
Laney looked at Jake. “Oh. I thought we talked about this once.”
He shook his head.
“Okay.” Laney paused to gather her thoughts, glad that she was able to think about something other than the current situation. “Well, you remember when I was shot?”
Jake looked at her for a long minute. “It rings a bell.”
She smiled. “Right. Well, seeing as I was on bed rest, I did a lot of reading.”
“I remember.”
She thought of Jake lugging cartons of books back to her house for her over the weeks she’d been recuperating, and she wound her fingers through his. “Well, part of what I was researching was Henry. We knew he was different, but we didn’t know why. I thought there might be something in the historical record about tall people with extreme abilities.”
“And you found something.”
Laney nodded. “I found the Mound Builders of North America.”
“And these alleged Mound Builders were giants?”
“Well…” Laney drew out the word.
Jake let out a sigh. “Go ahead.”
Laney smiled. “First, you have to understand the geological history of the United States—or North America, really. Until the 1920s, scientists believed that Native Americans had only been in the United Sates for a few thousand years.”
“Why? I mean the land has been here forever.”
Laney nodded. “True, but there were geographic barriers that were believed to isolate it.”
Laney saw the awareness spread across Jake’s face. “Ah, right. The Clovis First Theory.”
Laney nodded. “Yes.”
The Clovis First Theory referred to the belief that humans migrated to North America from Siberia around 9500 BCE. Allegedly, these first peoples followed big game across the Bering land bridge created by the lower sea levels. Those first immigrants were then believed to have largely died out within five hundred years, although no one is really sure as to why. And the land bridge disappeared as the sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age, isolating the continent once again.
“If I remember correctly, “ Jake said, “the belief was that humans entered prior to 9500 BCE and then not again until the 1500s with European settlers.”
“Yes. In fact, a big part of the problem with the Clovis First argument was that the archaeological evidence suggests that the Native Americans migrated from the south, meaning South America, not the north as in Siberia.
“But the bigger problem was that everyone accepted the 9500 date. So archaeologists would dig down to the 9500 strata, the Clovis barrier, and then stop. Why dig further when there was no chance humans had been there?”
“And I’m guessing somebody finally dug deeper?”
Laney nodded. “Yes. Some, like geologist George Carter, said humans had been in North America as early as 100,000 BCE. Louis Leakey even found evidence that California had been inhabited as early as 200,000 years ago.”
“Wait—Leakey? As in Lucy?”
Laney nodded. In 1974, Louis Leakey had become famous for finding “Lucy,” the first hominid skeleton, three million years old. “Yes. And when he advanced his hypothesis that there had been a much earlier appearance of humans in North America, he was all but drummed out of archaeology. It wasn’t until the 1980s when an archaeological team began digging at the Mount Verde site in Chile that the Clovis Barrier began to crumble. At that site, they were able to carbon date their finds and all their results consistently came back to 10,500 BCE, with evidence suggesting earlier sites at an astounding 35,000 BCE. And then, once people started digging below the Clovis barrier, the finds started to spring up.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully. “But if there was an ancient advanced civilization, the Bering Strait must not have been the only way to get to the continent. They must have sailed.” He grimaced. “Or I guess flew.”
Laney took his hand with a squeeze. “You said it, not me. But Cayce did mention that descendants of Atlantis and Mu escaped to North and South America after the destructions, around 50,000 BCE.”
“Mu?”
“Formally known as LeMuria—consider it Atlantis’s sister country. Atlantis was rumored to be off the east coast of North America. Mu was off the west coast.”
Jake stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. “Don’t think I’m ready to jump into a whole new mysterious ancient civilization. How about you just explain what any of this has to do with ‘giants’ in America?”
“Actually, I read a book with pretty much that very title. Anyway, we had these ancient sites cropping up all over the US once archaeologists started digging below the Clovis barrier. And along with those finds, people began to pay more attention to the legends of Native American people who spoke of an ancient race that lived here long before them.”
“Long before?” Jake asked.
Laney nodded. “There have been legends around for hundreds of years, if not longer, about tribes of giants who once lived in North America. Often they were described as having red hair.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Ancient relatives of yours?”
“Unlikely,” she said with a laugh, but then stopped and looked thoughtful. “Actually, I have no idea. I can add that to my ever-growing list of questions for Victoria.”
She shook her head to clear it of Victoria thoughts. There was no time for that right now. “Anyway, one of the best-known legends involved a cave in Lovelock, Nevada. According to the story, a race of giants once lived in the area, raining destruction on the indigenous people who also lived there. Finally pushed to their breaking point, the indigenous tribes joined together and tracked down the giants.”
In her mind, Laney saw the Native Americans chasing down the people who were alleged to have been eight to nine feet tall. “The indigenous tribes managed to all but eliminate the giants. The final few that remained were chased and trapped in a cave. The native people set a fire at the cave’s entrance. A few giants ran out and were killed. The rest were asphyxiated.”
Jake scoffed. “And there’s proof of this?”
“Well, sort of. After the giants, bats took over the cave. And they left bat guano six feet deep. In 1911 a company began mining the guano.”
“For gunpowder,” Jake said.
Laney looked over at him in surprise.
“Guano turns into saltpeter. The main ingredient in gunpowder. Navy SEAL, remember?”
She smiled. “Right. Anyway, when the company started mining, they came across skeletons and fossils. Of course, the company didn’t care. And for years they mined, literally tossing out all the an
cient finds.”
Jake cringed.
“I know. Finally, archaeologists were notified, and they managed to salvage ten thousand artifacts and two giant red-headed skeletons.”
“How long until the archaeologists showed up?”
Laney shook her head, thinking about all that could have been learned from the site if it had been studied properly from the beginning. “Ten years. And even then, they didn’t realize how significant the find was. The skeletons they documented were over eight feet tall. They also found a ton of arrows, suggesting that the tale of how the giants ended in the cave was true.”
“So what happened to the remains? How come they’re not front and center in some museum somewhere?”
“The skeletons were sent to the Smithsonian, and then they seemed to have disappeared.”
“Disappeared? They’re probably just in a box somewhere in some dusty storeroom.”
“Probably. But there are those who say that the Smithsonian seems to have developed a ‘habit’ of losing evidence of paleo-Indians of large size.”
“Wait. A habit? How many finds were there?”
“Dozens. From the mid-nineteenth century until the early twentieth, there are literally dozens of reports of giant skeletons being found across the country. All the skeletons ranged in size from six feet to nine feet. Some news report even suggested taller finds. In fact, early settlers accepted the fact that there must have been an ancient race that had settled North America prior to the Native Americans.”
“Why?”
“Because the skeletons were associated with these phenomenal mounds.”
“And let me guess: because they didn’t believe the Native Americans could construct such a monument?”
Laney nodded.
Jake was quiet for a moment. “Guess that makes sense. That was the time period when the roads were being dug and farms were being established.”
Laney’s mouth fell open. Wow. He’d really come a long way from when they’d started this whole crazy adventure.
Jake grinned. “Hey, I have learned it’s useless to fight the strange. After you’ve died and been brought back, learned you’re part of destined triad, and spent time fighting with angels, your views of history become a little less rigid. Now I’m just trying to roll with it. You said something about the mound builders. You mean like the serpent mound in Ohio?”
“That’s one of them. But actually, there were a lot of mounds, all across the United States, that settlers came across when they started expanding west. And when they dug into the mounds, people found these huge skeletons.”
“All of them were giant sized?” Jake asked.
Laney shook her head. “No. I remember one. It was a cabin that had been built for a twelve-year-old boy. It had toys, and a bed, and the remains of a young boy, buried in a mound.”
She stopped talking, feeling the grief she always did when she thought of that burial, compounded by the fact that more children were in danger of dying now. Or already dead.
She blew out a breath. “Whoever these mound builders were, they loved. That was obvious.”
“So who do you think they were? Fallen? Early Native Americans?”
“To be honest, I think they might not be either. I’m not entirely convinced they were even homo sapiens.”
Jake’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“There have been over twenty different types of hominids discovered, and more seem to crop up each year. Most have a combination of characteristics that can be found in homo sapiens, but they are definitely not homo sapiens—which complicates the whole ‘where do we come from’ question.”
“And you think the giants are one of these alternative hominid groups?”
Laney nodded and rubbed the bridge of her nose, where a headache had started to develop. “I’m guessing Homo denisova. Very little has been found of them except for some toe bones and a very large tooth. If the scale is correct, they were much bigger than homo sapiens, maybe even eight or nine feet tall.”
Jake let out a low whistle. “Wow.”
“And it just gets more unusual. DNA tests reveal that the denisovans bred with another unknown species that was neither Neanderthal nor human. And then the problem was, they were supposed to have become extinct over 250,000 years ago, but remains were found indicating they were still around as recently as 10,000 years ago.”
“Which means they could be the origin of the ancient tales of giants.”
Laney nodded. “Legends of an ancient race of giants can be found across the globe. Take for example the tales of Viracocha, down in Bolivia. He was the Incan god who was supposed to have spawned a race of giants. And Viracocha himself was supposed to have been incredibly intelligent, with great powers.”
“A Fallen?”
Laney shrugged. “Maybe. The archaeological site of Puma Punka was said to have been created by Viracocha and his giants. And it is incredible.”
Laney pictured the ancient ruins that looked more like the remnants of a construction site than an ancient temple. “The site has these incredible H-shaped blocks that fit together perfectly. Each of them is close to, if not over, one hundred tons. And now the blocks are scattered about, like a child’s building blocks. But it’s not just the size of the blocks that’s impressive, it’s the precision with which they were carved and the niches that were carved into them. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear they were done with a machine.”
“What happened to them?”
“The best guess is that a giant flood came and destroyed the site. The site is ten miles inshore though, so it had to be a pretty big flood. But it dates to at least 12,000 BCE, and others put it closer to 24,000 BCE.”
Laney shook her head. “Anyway, stories like that have been dismissed by academics. There was no proof. But when I started looking into heights and abilities, I don’t know, there were these similarities.”
“Such as?”
“Well, just like the flood myth, which is found over and over in cultures around the world, the myth of giants also litters the globe. And then the old newspaper articles in the States—they were years apart and came from different parts of the country. That’s odd. Because remember, this is the late nineteenth century. Communicating across great distances wasn’t exactly easy. Plus, some pieces of those skeletons do remain, and they are massive.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “So you don’t think Linda’s preoccupation with giants is related to the missing kids?”
Laney’s enjoyment of the discussion crashed to the ground as reality roared back and slapped her in the face. She shook her head. “I don’t see how. I mean, these ancient skeletons were huge, and some nephilim like Henry or Maddox are tall, but besides that, I don’t see any connection.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “So. Are we even sure Nathaniel Grayston has the kids? Are we sure we’re heading in the right direction?”
As Laney looked at him, all the doubts she had crowded into her mind. “I don’t know, Jake. But right now, he’s our only lead. And if he doesn’t have them…” Laney couldn’t finish the sentence.
So Jake finished it for her. “Then we have no idea where they are.”
CHAPTER 57
Sacramento, California
Nathaniel sat behind his desk, staring at the family picture he kept to the right of his blotter. Zachariah was only ten in the shot and smiled brightly. He and Beatrice had thought they were so blessed with him. But that was before they knew who he was. What he was.
Now Nathaniel knew God had a higher purpose for him. God had not forsaken them. They had passed the trial of their son and were now to be given the keys to an everlasting reward.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Nathaniel called.
Beatrice stepped in. “Zachariah is here.” There was no trace of warmth in her voice, no motherly concern. She had turned all of that off the day they had discovered what the boy was. To her, Zachariah was now a distasteful stran
ger.
“Send him in.”
Beatrice nodded, stepping back out of the room.
Zachariah appeared in the doorway. “You needed to see me, Father?”
Nathaniel nodded, waving him in. He stood up and walked over to his son, placing his hand briefly on the boy’s shoulder. “My son. You will never know God’s grace. You are cursed. There is no changing that. But there is hope for you. The Shepherd has shown us a way for you to honor this family.”
Zach looked up, his eyes identical to his mother’s. The similarity only made Nathaniel cringe more. He shook off his disgust at the abomination cloaked in familiar dressing.
“You have been given a duty—a higher calling. By this act, you open the door to everlasting salvation. That must count for something.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I have always thought you were our curse: a punishment for our sins. But now I see that you are our reward for following His ways. Through you, we open the door to eternal rewards. The Shepherd has a plan for you.”
“Me?”
Nathaniel smiled, imagining his name being linked with glory for generations to come. All would know of Nathaniel Grayston. He placed his hand on his son’s shoulder with a squeeze. “Yes, son. I am proud it is our family who has been called to this mission.”
Zachariah’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, Father. Thank you, Father. What must I do?”
The boy’s tears confused Nathaniel, until he realized that Zachariah must think that Nathaniel was proud of him. Oh well, if it helps the mission, so be it.
He took Zachariah’s shoulders and peered into his eyes. “You must go into the belly of the beast. Are you strong enough for that?”
Zach nodded. “Yes, Father. I am.”
“Good, good. You may go.” Nathaniel walked back to his desk. His thoughts of his son were already gone. He was too wrapped up in thoughts of the glorious future that awaited him.