by Vella Munn
When he'd satisfied his curiosity about the lake—yes, it was still iced over—he returned to his horse and pulled some jerky and hard bread out of his saddlebags. Taking pity on the animal, he shared the bread with it.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you? I don't suppose it's a lot of comfort to have me point out that it's not snowing as much as it was awhile ago."
The horse pushed its nose against his chest. Barely aware of what he was doing, he started scratching between its ears. "It doesn't make sense, does it? Even if we leave right now, it'll be nearly dark by the time we get back. What do you think about spending the night?"
The horse went on shoving, its eyes half closed.
"I don't suppose it makes that much difference to you. You've got your winter coat, but all I brought for myself are a couple of blankets."
A couple of blankets. He really had done that, hadn't he? When he tied the blankets behind his saddle, he'd told himself that only a fool would go out in the winter without some kind of protection, but in the back of his mind, maybe, he'd known what he was willing to do if it meant, maybe, seeing Luash.
Luash.
Mist.
A woman who spoke with eagles and believed herself safe from all harm.
The woman now emerging from the lava beds.
Chapter 6
Lieutenant Jed Britton stood in the drifting snow with his horse dozing nearby. Luash studied the man, noting his heavy winter coat and the rifle by his side. He looked lonely but not vulnerable and she guessed he wasn't a man to concern himself with vulnerability.
She'd been waiting for him for days. She'd told no one, not even Kientpoos, what she was doing. If she had, she would have been asked questions she couldn't answer, not even for herself.
She walked slowly toward Jed, acutely aware that he closely watched her every move. She felt the cold, strangely gentle touch of snow on her face but couldn't think how to lift her arms to wipe away the moisture. The storm blunted his impact, but not her reaction to him.
"You should not have come," she said when she reached him.
"Am I being watched?" He didn't take his eyes off her.
"Our scouts are near Crawley's Ranch; it is an easy thing to hide from many enemy eyes. If someone saw you leave it, they saw only a single man and paid you little attention. Still, your life is in danger."
"I imagine it is."
It was her turn to say something, but for a long time, she didn't try. Behind him brooded the great lake that had fed her people for as long as Modocs walked this land. Jed didn't belong here; this was her place—her people's lake. And yet, perhaps because his coat and hair were snow-dusted, he had begun to blend into his surroundings.
"Some of your braves have been stealing cattle." His eyes were relentless on hers. "The ranchers are demanding that the army do something about it."
"Are they going to?"
His mouth twitched in that quiet, unexpected way of his. "I'm a soldier, Luash. I can't tell you that."
"No, you cannot."
"Then what are we doing here together?"
"There are things we need to say to each other. Once we have done that, it will be over between us."
"It better be." He frowned. "Where did you learn English? You speak it so well."
"I had a patient teacher."
"It had to have taken a long time. Why—" His voice thinned; he didn't seem to know how to finish the question.
"Why did I want to learn white words? Because no matter how much I prayed to Eagle to take away the newcomers, I knew they would not leave. Eagle's wisdom was that I study all that I could about those who had moved onto Modoc land."
"Eagle's wisdom? Ha!"
"You laugh at what you do not understand. I got to know a settler's wife. Elizabeth. We each had things the other needed. Sometimes I think we were friends." She fell silent, remembering her visits with Elizabeth.
"How did you know I was here?"
"I was watching."
"For me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I do not have the answer to that," she said and walked around him to run her hand over his horse's neck. Despite her blanket's bulk, she felt Jed's heavy coat brush her arm and faced him. "I understand not enough of what happens when I am around you, Lieutenant. All I know is, we had to see each other again."
"Why?"
She wished he would not keep asking that question over and over again, forcing her to dig deep inside herself for the truth. "You are here. So am I. I say it is because something is unfinished between us. Why did you risk your life today, Lieutenant?"
"Jed." She nodded. He said, "I can't stop thinking about what I saw between you and that bird. Isn't that enough of a reason?"
No, it wasn't. Still, she didn't want to talk about the forces that had propelled them toward each other. She knew she should hate him. How much simpler things would be if she felt that way. But this soldier who made war with her people was not just an enemy. He was also a gray-eyed man with a body made for fighting and survival, a man with loneliness in his heart.
"Why aren't you afraid of me?"
His beautiful gray eyes were less sheltered, less distant than they'd been the first time, as if he was letting go of a little of himself. Still, so much of him remained beyond her touch. She sighed. "You do not know what Eagle is to me; until you do, you cannot understand."
He shook his head, rejecting her words.
"I have never met a man like you. Someone who surrounds himself with bitterness and yet finds beauty in what is around him."
"Beauty?" He indicated their surroundings. "This isn't beautiful."
"The wind touches you; you sense its message," she said as the distant howl of a wolf drifted to her. "Your words say there is nothing to embrace about this land, but your eyes say another thing." She looked up at him, felt his spirit pulling at her, glanced away. "I see loneliness there. And questions. A wish that tomorrow would come and take away the loneliness."
She'd barely gotten the words out when he grabbed her and yanked her so close that his features blurred. "The way I live is how I want it!"
"No. It is not." She easily pulled free, told him with her eyes and stance that she didn't want him to touch her again. "Listen to me, army man. Once I was a child known as Teina. Something happened—something that showed me I could no longer live with my parents. I could have become bitter, as you are, but my soul did not want that. I went to live with my uncle." She straightened, looked him in the eye. "You call him Captain Jack."
"Captain Jack?" He reared back, teeth clenched. "Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"Then, it was none of your concern. I no longer have any wish to keep that from you."
"No more secrets? All right, I'll tell you something—the reason I came looking for you today. The army isn't going to go away. We're stronger, larger. Damned determined. War has been declared, Luash. Tell your uncle he's going to get himself and everyone else killed if he doesn't give up."
War. "And if he gives up, what happens then? Will he be taken in chains to some white man's prison?"
"That's for the courts to decide."
"White man's courts!"
"Yes," he insisted. "White man's courts, because there's no way a handful of Modocs can win. Look, we've got a general here now. A general! The army's determined to roust your people out of the lava beds. They're not going to go away until they've accomplished that."
"Why do you hate us so?"
"Why do I hate you?" He looked, furious but determined. "All right, I'll tell you. And once I have, maybe you'll understand."
"I will not want to hear this, will I?"
He breathed out, long and slow, his warm breath just brushing her forehead. "Years ago the Sioux damn near scalped me." He pressed his fingers against the scar on his forehead. "Shot me full of arrows and left me more dead than alive. I was the only one not killed. Out of eighty good and decent men, the only one..."
He was still speaki
ng, but she couldn't concentrate. She had good reason to have no love for his kind. Hadn't they treated her mother as if she was less than human? Hadn't they forced the Modocs who'd followed Kientpoos to flee their burning homes like frightened antelope? But what she felt was nothing compared to what ruled him.
Turning away, she slowly walked as close to the lake as she dared. The unseen birds made so much noise that she couldn't hear Jed, but she sensed that he was right behind her. She wasn't afraid of turning her back to him. Still, his scar was a memory of that horrible day when the Sioux had tried to kill him; he would live his entire life with that reminder.
"This—" she indicated the lake"—is a gift to my people. Everything, sun and clouds, even the winter storms are sacred. There would be no Modocs if Kumookumts hadn't scattered seeds over the world. He and the other gods lived with our ancestors and spoke the language of the Modoc. He left behind his footprints, so we would know and understand, and always be reminded of his blessings. Some Modocs have forgotten that, but not those of us who want to live at Lost Creek. That is why we will not surrender—because Kumookumts lives in our hearts."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"When you speak, I hear a man who believes that Sioux and Modoc, that all Indians, are the same, just creatures to feel your hatred and bitterness and be destroyed. Those emotions have twisted you."
She heard him suck in a quick breath and waited for his anger. But although she could feel it pressing against both of them, he didn't say anything. The birds momentarily quieted, and in the near silence, she heard the wolf again. As she struggled to gather her thoughts, she continued to stare out at the frozen lake. Why had this soldier, this complicated, contradictory man, touched her life?
All she could give him in return was a piece of herself—understanding of who and what she was. Later she would face the question of whether she'd given him too much. "I cannot look inside your heart and feel what it feels. You say you want me to know about your scar, what you survived, but I say that is a bad thing. Your heart stands in yesterday, Jed. Only you can bring it into today."
From out of the comer of her eye, she watched his hand become a fist. His fingers had already turned colorless from the cold, but now they became so starkly white that she could see the strong bones and dark veins beneath his flesh. Blood pulsed through him; his body was young and powerful. A man like that should be embracing his tomorrows, not lost in what had been.
"You are not like most soldiers," she continued. "You do not stay safely in camp. Instead, you ride out here to tell me that my people will die if they do not do as the army says. Maybe—" She glanced his way, then forced herself to go on looking at him. "Maybe it is because Bear has called to you and you cannot pretend you have not heard."
"Whose Bear? Another of your spirits?"
"Not mine, no." She tapped the side of her head. "Bear has the wisdom of man. Maybe he came to you in your sleep and whispered his wisdom to you."
"You're talking nonsense, Luash."
"Modoc beliefs are nonsense, you say. Are we to embrace the words of your Sunday doctor simply because he carries an old black book? Tell me something, Jed. This world of your god, who supposedly created the world in six days, are the Modocs in it?"
"He isn't my god."
She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back on her heels. "Then who guides you?"
"No one."
That could not, should not be, but if she told him he was wrong, he would only argue with her. "I cannot say why Eagle chose me, but my gratitude and joy will last as long as I live." She slipped her fingers through her hair and held up the white strand for him to see. "This was his gift to me. Would you call it nothing, Jed Britton?"
"I don't know." His voice was heavy and dark. He made a move as if to touch her hair, and then pulled back. Still, his attention remained on what she'd shown him. "That's the hell of it, I don't know. But there's one thing I'm damn sure of."
He stood so close that if he wanted—if she wanted—they could easily be in each other's arms. "And that's that no matter who your deity is, he can't stop the army from running over you."
Sudden fear sliced through her. "Because you have so many soldiers?"
"Not just that. They're set to stay until they've starved you out. Worn you down. Killed you, if need be."
She'd been wrong. She wanted nothing to do with him after all. "So much has been taken from us already, why not everything?"
To her shock, he placed his arm lightly on her shoulder. She tensed, nearly broke free again. When he didn't say anything, she stared up at the snow and fought what he was doing to her senses.
"Long ago, before the first white man, there was only us and the Klamaths and Snakes," she told him. "In those times, Kumookumts walked among the Modocs and showed them where to hunt for antelope and deer and mountain sheep, how to hide from our enemies. We were children who cared about nothing except gathering enough camas, wocus, chokecherries, and wild plum to see us through the winter. We celebrated when the men trapped elk. Great fish came to the rivers and we celebrated that too. Although the elk and fish and wild plum will always be here, there is little to be joyful about now.
"So much has changed," she continued when he said nothing. "Mistakes were made by Modocs as well as whites. Long ago, my grandfathers killed and scalped. One winter many Modocs living at Lost River were ambushed by settlers. That time Modocs were scalped, and there was hatred on both sides. We cannot go back to being children; I know that. But knowing does not stop me from wanting what my ancestors had."
"I want back my parents' plantation. Only, it isn't going to happen."
"Plantation?"
"Fertile land ripe for growing. So rich you wouldn't believe it. It was the only place my parents ever wanted to live."
"But they lost that, the way the Modocs have lost their land?" she asked.
His fingers on her shoulder contracted. "There was a war between one half of the country and the other, over things neither side could understand or accept about the other. It was so complex, but it doesn't matter anymore. Our side—they called it the South—lost, and those who won forced my parents off their land." Before she could brace herself, he turned her around and stared down at her. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"Maybe we are not so different after all. We both understand the power land has over us, how rich the gift."
"Land my parents bought with their sweat and work. The Yankees had no call to take it from them."
"Bought?" The wolf called again; she tried to hold it to her, think of nothing else. "The word has little meaning to me. What you see here, and even what you cannot, was created by Mother Earth. Her offspring are the mountain peaks and lakes, and a mother does not sell her children."
"You really believe that, don't you?" Jed asked, his question both gentle and hard edged. "You're convinced that some entity that goes by the name of Mother Earth is responsible for everything?"
"Why does what I believe bother you so? I would think it does not matter."
"It doesn't," he snapped and she knew it was a lie. "All right. So Mother Earth and Kumookumts created Mount Shasta. What in the hell good is it? What do the Modocs, or anyone for that matter, need with a massive chunk of rock covered with snow?"
"Eagle and Sun God live there. Without Great Eagle, all animals, birds, and fish would be without names. Great Eagle gifted Bear with the wisdom of humans and made Snake immortal."
"Oh Luash, no."
"That is our belief. It was right and true before your Sunday doctors came and said we were wrong."
"Belief?" he whispered, "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've had belief?"
She didn't have to be told; she'd seen the answer in his eyes. "Then I cry for you, Jed Britton. You will never sit at a temescal and offer up prayers to those who gave you life. You will never add your own prayer stone to the piles alongside trails, never make an offering of food to the spirits."
"Yo
u're talking crazy. This is nonsense."
"Nonsense? You, who have never walked in our footsteps, would take away our belief?"
"If you had lived through what I did—it sure as hell wasn't God's hand."
"You were spared. Your god—"
"If there had been a god, he wouldn't have destroyed my parents. Don't you understand?" She saw in his eyes a hopelessness, a frustration, questions that went as deep as his soul. "What happened, happened. The Sioux who was trying to scalp me was killed by my only friend. Then Charles—I watched Charles get shot. Listened to him die. If God had a hand in any of that—no. I can't accept that."
His fingers had continued to bite into her as he spoke, and yet despite the pain he was inflicting, she couldn't bring herself to pull away. She'd never seen such agony in another human being. Even when she had realized her father was capable of selling her body to satisfy his greed, she hadn't known despair that deep.
"I cannot say why those things happened to you," she whispered, not sure she was using the right words, or if any would reach him. "But to condemn your god—"
"He condemned me."
Wondering if a spark of belief remained in him, she stared deep into his eyes, but what she saw made her pull back. He was challenging her with words, throwing his anger at her. Speaking straight from his wounded heart.
"To walk through life alone, to never know peace, is a terrible thing."
"What makes you think I'm not at peace?"
"It is in everything you say. If you were Modoc, true Modoc, you would look at Mount Shasta and feel awe because that is the home of Sun God. The great mountain is a gift, a blessing, the work of hands beyond our understanding. That is what true belief is, Jed. Beyond understanding."
"Damnit, Luash. How can you swallow this?"
She jerked free. He reached for her again, but she held up a warning hand. The wolf had been silent; now he howled again, a drifting, lonely sound. "Do not touch me. I do not want to feel you on my flesh."