The Shelter Cycle

by Peter Rock

  “I didn’t mean to wreck anything.”

  “She did that.” The man chuckled, scratching at his beard. “She did it to keep in all the vibrations; she wanted to know what was in there, but she wanted to control it, too.” He glanced back at Colville. “What? You’re worried? She had plenty of crazy ideas. These books aren’t going to hurt anyone.” He smiled again. “Or at least tinfoil’s not changing anything.”

  “The Messenger,” Colville said, looking over at the framed portrait on the bookshelf, her steady eyes looking out.

  “Don’t get me wrong.” The man pressed his hands flat against the ceiling as if holding it up, preventing the weight of the earth from crashing down on them. “She was a great messenger, but where once there was one, now there are many, and the highest Teachings are the ones inside us. The simple ones. You know that.”

  “I know who you are,” Colville said.

  “You were waiting for me, and here I am. Call me Jeremy.” Crouching down, he scratched Kilo again, squinted up at Colville. “We’ll have some fine travels together.”

  “Where?” Colville said.

  “You don’t trust me?” Jeremy chuckled again. “We’ll travel light,” he said. “I’ll meet you in half an hour or so, back in the room where you’ve been sleeping. Then we’ll set out.”

  “Come on, Kilo,” Colville said, turning.

  “Would you leave the dog with me?”

  “I’d rather he came with me.”

  “As you like it,” Jeremy said. “We’ll all be together soon enough. Until then.”

  Colville crawled through the tiny door, led Kilo back to the tunnel. After helping the dog onto the cart, he wheeled him through the familiar darkness.

  18

  WHEN COLVILLE CLIMBED UP the ladder, out of the cylinder, it was the middle of the day, the sun a pale disk through the clouds.

  “Here,” Jeremy said, pushing cloth bags into the orange frame pack. “Some of this dried fish you like, and some rice, and something for Kilo, too, of course.”

  The dog leapt sideways, excited at the sound of his name, attentive to Jeremy’s every gesture.

  “Where were you before?” Colville said.

  “Before when?”

  “Before you were here.”

  “Before? I was here, before. And I was elsewhere, too—always traveling.” Kneeling, Jeremy now held two tubes of blue nylon with black rubber soles roughly sewn on, long black laces trailing. He stood barefoot in the snow, slapping ice from his feet before he slipped them into the boots.

  “Moon boots,” Colville said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I remember them, from when I was a kid.”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said. “I remember them as well.” He pulled the laces tight, then stood, smiling. “Is something the matter?”

  “No,” Colville said.

  “You seem troubled. What is it?”

  “If you’re a Master, if you’re Saint Germain, how can I even stand so close to you? How come I can see you? Because I’ve gotten stronger?”

  Jeremy laughed. “Wouldn’t you think I could control my state of vibration, dial it down?” Now he stepped closer to the hatch; he reached down and lifted the cover on its hinge. When he let it go, it snapped shut with a hollow sound.

  “Did you leave it open for me?” Colville said. “That first day?”

  “I figured you could use a little help—of course, it won’t do any good if I take all your tests for you.”

  Jeremy looked away, pointed up the slope. He blended into the white snow; only his blue boots and the skin of his face, his hands, shone darker. He had no hat or gloves, though the coat he wore did have a hood, now hanging down his back, trimmed with thick fur and attached by a zipper. The coat was white nylon, quilted, reaching halfway down his thighs; it looked like something a person, a woman, would wear in a city.

  They began to ascend, drifting slightly apart, then closer again. Their shoulders touched when Colville’s snowshoes broke through the snow’s crust. Within twenty minutes they had crested the slope. Colville looked back at the long indentations in the snow, far below, and then turned to see Jeremy accelerating away, slipping easily down from the ridge, on through a stand of trees with Kilo running alongside him.

  He tried to keep up; his pack swayed, his snowshoes clattered and crossed. Jeremy left no real tracks, staying always on top of the snow. Perhaps it was the fact that he traveled so light, carried no pack, but it was also the way he walked: gracefully, his arms swinging in a slow rhythm, his feet lifting eagerly, certain of where they wished to go.

  Electric Peak, behind them, slid out of view. Under the trees, the dim light of the afternoon cast few shadows. Colville breathed the cold air in, the hairs in his nose brittle. Wind rattled the branches above, shaking snow loose. It fell silently, disappeared into the whiteness underfoot.

  Sometimes Jeremy slipped away, then appeared again, in a farther opening of trees, on a bare expanse of snow; sometimes he seemed to wink in and out of sight from moment to moment, a kind of white mirage with the black shape of Kilo steadily, constantly beside him. They climbed to the next ridgeline, followed it for a while, the cold wind chilling the sweat on Colville’s back, under the scarf around his neck, then dropped down into the trees again.

  Now Kilo came running back to urge him along, through another rocky gap. Jeremy, waiting there, simply smiled. It was as if they’d met by chance, two lone hikers, as if Jeremy hadn’t been exerting himself at all. He stepped to one side, to make room. His beard and mustache framed his white teeth as he reached out his hand, offering a paper cup.

  Colville took it, sniffed the white liquid, felt the cold against his fingers. He tasted it. Milk. Next Jeremy handed him a brownie wrapped in cellophane, walnuts visible along its cut edges.

  “Listen, Colville,” he said. “I need your help. It’s that simple. We’ve been watching you for so long. Those early days with Francine, then Moses. Just the other day I was thinking about your time in Spokane—all those word and number puzzles you used to do, when you were living in that garage. When was the last time you did one of those puzzles, the last time you thought of one?”

  Colville stared into the gray sky, uncertain what to say. The wind whistled high in the pines, a rattle of branches, a cold dust of snow shaken loose. He took a bite of the brownie, stale and sweet.

  Jeremy swept his fingers up alongside his head as he spoke, as if straightening his hair or clearing it from in front of his eyes, though it stayed in place, combed in waves. To finish the gesture, he stroked his blond beard and mustache as he brought his hand down.

  “And you were in that garage when the raccoon found you, and then you found Francine. Your paths, how they fork away from each other and then come together—it’s always a pleasure to watch. Francine, she’s doing such important work right now, her own preparations.”

  The wind eased, gusted, spun away through the treetops.

  “Sometimes I think I can feel it,” Colville said. “Moses. His Light, I mean. The Light Moses had. I think maybe it was thrown to me.”

  Jeremy sat down on a stump and unlaced his boots. He double-checked the laces, making sure the ends were the same length, knotted them twice, then took a few steps forward and back, checking the fit. When he was satisfied, he looked back up at Colville.

  “We should keep moving,” he said. “There’s still an hour or two of daylight, and people might need our help. We follow this ridge for a time. You lead—I believe I’d welcome a change of pace.”

  Colville trudged ahead, his breath chuffing out, dispersing. The snow on the ridge was hard, windswept, bare earth peeking through; he considered pausing to take off his snowshoes, but he didn’t want to stop, to feel the presence and impatience of Jeremy backed up behind him, where now there was only Kilo’s panting. All around, on each side and above, pale clouds slid across each other, higher and lower, their edges sharp. The shadows grew longer; animals flickered at the edges of his visio
n; crossed branches in bare bushes and fallen trees looked like men, people, figures spying out, gone when he turned his head.

  He tried to hike faster, his snowshoes slapping roots and stones, ice. To his right, a steep white slope dropped away, half a mile, to a section of exposed rock, probably a river beneath the ice and snow; to his left, the tree line was about a hundred yards below, mist in the dark, sharp tops of the pines. Was it mist, or were they clouds?

  “So—” Colville spoke without turning. “We’re up on the Gallatin trail, now?”

  There was no answer.

  “Past Sportsman Lake?”

  Still no answer. At last, he turned. Behind him there was nothing but white snow, whistling wind, the sky turning darker as the sun slid away.

  “Jeremy?” he said. “Kilo?” His voice rose as he took two, three steps back in the direction he’d come.

  Then he stopped, closed his eyes, shifted the weight of his pack on his shoulders. Should he wait, and for how long? Or should he go ahead?

  He turned around again, kept on, farther along the ridge. One foot, then the next, steadily descending, back under the cover of trees. He clapped his gloved hands together in front of him, hummed to himself. His fingers and toes were cold, but he felt confident, certain as he went.

  A gunshot. Was it a gunshot? Not far ahead. Or it could have been something else—strange pressure in his ears, a sonic boom, jets hidden high above, or the invisible machines the Messenger wrote about.

  Another gunshot, echoing around him, from down below.

  And then silence.

  Colville picked up his pace, sticks catching and breaking off, kicked free from his snowshoes.

  Ten minutes later he came upon it: an elk’s head, severed from its body and sitting in the snow. Its black eyes stared; its tongue slightly jutted out between its teeth. It had tipped over slightly, resting on one side of its antlers.

  The snow underfoot was red with blood, darker than the shadows, the smell thick in the air. Headless, the carcass hung from a tree limb, half skinned, still dripping. Organs and entrails snaked out, not yet cut free.

  Then, beyond the trees, forty feet away and down the slope, he saw movement. Two figures, standing over something. One taller and thinner, and the other talking, shaking his hands in the air. Both men wore camouflage outfits, the taller man in an orange vest. And then the shorter one shouted out: “Is someone there?”

  “That’s just the elk,” the taller man said. “Remember, that’s where we hung it. Keep your head, now.”

  Colville stood still; he considered stepping out of the trees toward the men. They did not look upward, did not call out.

  Slowly, very slowly, he eased into movement, skirting the open slope. He stayed low in the underbrush, deeper in the trees, careful that his pack didn’t snag on overhanging branches. His heart slowed, his breathing eased. The shadows lengthened and disappeared, joined each other as night fell. Animals called, rustled around him. A tree branch slapped his cheek.

  He chewed an icicle, walked farther, followed a streambed covered in snow. A squirrel shot across a branch overhead, leapt to another tree, disappeared. The snow was deeper here, and softer. His snowshoes kicked through to reveal blackened earth; with the smell of ashes in his nose, he kept on, around deadfalls, through the burned-out stretches where fires had run, where new trees now jutted dark through the snow.

  He slanted up a ridge, along a cliff, low caves like dark mouths alongside him. A few pale stars now shone between the clouds. It made no sense to worry about Kilo, to try to find Jeremy. That was beyond his power. All he could do was clamber over this ridge, his pack heavy on his back, and start down the other side. Was this Specimen Creek, or was he north of there?

  He tripped on a bush, caught himself on a sapling. Holding his breath, he thought he heard something, a mechanical noise, down below. Then it was silent once more, except for his breathing. The wind in the trees, the black sky pressing down close against their branches.

  He kept on, descending, along the frozen creek bed. Dark water rushed past, visible through holes in the ice. Again he heard something, and paused. Traffic. He began to see glimpses of a road below, through the trees, a long curved black line against the snow.

  The ground grew level after a time, and he emerged from the trees, crossed an empty field. He climbed through a rusted barbed wire fence, up an embankment, then slid down a snowdrift made by plows. He was standing on the narrow shoulder of Highway 191. If he caught a ride north, he’d be in Bozeman; south, in West Yellowstone.

  Headlights approached, from the north. A van, its cab alight, slowed; two small, dark-haired girls waved wildly through the side windows, their faces smearing the glass as they slipped past.

  Colville hurried, his snowshoes clattering on the blacktop until he reached the other side. He took off his pack and tossed it over the snowdrift, then climbed after it. He began to ascend the next slope, heading deeper into the mountains.

  19

  THE NEXT MORNING it was still dark when Colville awakened, the air cold against his exposed face. He felt the fabric of the tent close around him, the sleeping bag straining to hold Kilo, as well. It startled Colville that the dog was back, but it did not exactly surprise him.

  “Jeremy?” he said, and his voice faded away in the cold darkness around the tent.

  Rolling over, he closed his eyes, began his decrees—“I AM the Violet Flame, in Action in me now, I AM the Violet Flame, to Light alone I bow.” His voice sped up, a low hum.

  Soon, crimson shone through his eyelids. The sun was rising, clearing the ridge. He opened his eyes and the shadows above seemed strange, black lines all around on top of the tent like so many long fingers. Fighting his hands free, unzipping the bag and the tent fly, he crawled out into the freshly fallen snow, stood up in his stocking feet, and turned around.

  Sticks, branches, and moss had been piled on his tent, woven into each other, a structure like an upside-down bird’s nest, a kind of igloo. White snow and ice glistened on top of it, the sun now shining down. Colville had seen this in his father’s survival books; the debris added insulation, kept things warm inside. Jeremy must have done it while Colville slept, before the snow fell; there were no footprints around the structure.

  Colville’s feet were freezing. He bent down, pulled on another pair of wool socks, found his boots; a few sticks fell from the shelter as he did so, and this rousted Kilo, who crawled out, his body low as if he feared being scratched from above. Once outside, he walked to the remains of last night’s fire and turned a slow circle in every direction.

  “He’s not here,” Colville said. “No, don’t try to get back in. I know it’s cold.”

  He pulled the tent free, and the structure of sticks and snow leaned but didn’t fall; he’d leave this lopsided igloo standing for someone to find, to wonder at. If anyone ever passed through here, wherever this was.

  He packed up, then ate breakfast as he walked, hiking up a slope, trying to stay in the sunlight. He held out a handful of dried fish for Kilo, then ate some himself.

  They walked all morning, along snowy ridges, through pine forests. West, mostly, as that was the direction that Jeremy had started them in when they first left the shelter. Colville also followed his intuition, tried to sense the energy of a given path; sometimes he followed Kilo, let the dog make the decisions.

  When he stopped to rest, he read the passages from The Art of War that he’d copied into his notebook: Some terrain is easily passable, in some you get hung up, some makes for a standoff, some is narrow, some is steep, some is wide open. Appear where they cannot go. Head for where they least expect you. To travel hundreds of miles without fatigue, go over land where there are no people.

  The Teachings said, Where your thought is, there you are, and yet all this walking was necessary, a physical demonstration of travel that was not physical. Looking up, Colville checked the cloudless sky for darker patches, bent rays of light. Two hawks hung suspended, insc
ribing long, smooth circles. One higher, one lower, riding the air currents, their sharp eyes everywhere around him.

  Another day passed, a night. They walked along a frozen streambed; tall, dried reeds stretched overhead, rain drifted down. Colville could hear Kilo ahead, rustling through the dead reeds, could catch glimpses of his wet, black shape. The yellow stalks shifted the light, made all movement stutter and jerk.

  The rain let up just as they reached the cover of trees, thick pines above and tangled ivy below them, a kind of path cutting deeper into the shadows. Kilo paused, shook himself, water spinning away in all directions. Colville tore the plastic bag from his body.

  They started up the slope, into a thick forest. Birds called back and forth above; squirrels chittered along low branches. Kilo ran with his nose to the ground, curling away, returning. Colville closed his eyes; he slowed his breath as a wind suddenly rushed at him, the air beating around him. He listened. Something in the grass, smooth along the forest floor, close to him now. When he opened his eyes, it took a moment to see the snake: long and thin, it slid around him, its head down, tongue going, circling, not coming closer. A rattlesnake, its markings pale. Kilo growled; Colville reached down, settled him. Another snake trailed the first, he saw—this one black, a yellow stripe running its length, its head almost touching the tail of the first. Both circled, five feet away, slowly widening their curves and then straightening, heading out under the trees.

  Colville followed, one hand on Kilo’s neck.

  The snakes, still stretched end to end, moved calmly over the roots and stones, around trees and plants, always returning to their course. And then the rattlesnake slipped into a dark round hole in the ground; its body seemed to shorten on itself, its tail going last. The other snake followed, the yellow stripe slipping away, a bright string pulled into the darkness.

  Colville’s pack caught on a bush, a branch snapping back, a leaf gently slapping him in the face. He held the branch still, his eyes adjusting, focusing close. There, on the leaf’s surface, someone had scratched words into the green with a stick or a fingernail: Hello Friend. He twisted its stem, broke it loose, folded it away in his pocket. As he did, he glimpsed something above. A flash of white, a movement in the trees. Gone for a moment, there again, too pale and bright to be a leaf—