by Rada, J. R.
But it is our destiny.
David shook his head. Your destiny was to keep the dark kachinas imprisoned until Pahana returned, but I’m telling you I’m not Pahana. You and the Sun Clan have to fight the Bow Clan and imprison the dark kachinas. It’s not yet your time to leave Kuskurza.
Ma´saw started crying and David felt like the world’s largest heel. But the dark kachinas couldn’t be allowed onto the surface. Too many lives were at stake. Ma´saw should understand; he had had to make similar decisions. These were the type of command decisions that the Army Reserves had tried to teach David to make, and he had always hated them.
When will we be free, Pahana? Ma´saw asked. When will you return?
David shook his head. Ma´saw still didn’t believe him. The Sun Clan leader still thought David was a Christ-like god. How could David make Ma´saw understand?
Should he even try?
I will return soon. The time for the reuniting of our peoples draws nearer, but Tu´waqachi is not yet ready to receive you. And here, Kuskurza must be reclaimed in the name of Taiowa. As you fulfill your mission from the Creator, I will fulfill mine, David told Ma´saw.
How? What must we do?
Show your hearts true. Fight the Bow Clan. Use the flameless torches to force the dark kachinas into the temples again. Conquer the evil and then I will return.
Ma´saw nodded reluctantly. David reached out and laid his hands on Ma´saw’s head. Silently praying in his head so that Ma´saw could hear his words, David blessed the Sun Clan leader in God’s name with strength and wisdom to endure to the time that Pahana would deliver the Sun Clan from Kuskurza. When David removed his hands, Ma´saw hugged him.
Thank you, Pahana, we will await your return.
Ma´saw turned and rushed back down the passage to lead his people into battle. He was quickly lost among the crowd of Sun Clansmen.
“They’ll be slaughtered,” Sarah said.
“No, they won’t. They’re doing God’s work or Taiowa’s work; however, you want to address him. They will win in the end. Light and faith will be their banner to victory.”
A stray langher bolt hit the wall above David’s head bringing him out of his daze.
“Do you know where you want to set the charge?” he asked Gary.
Gary nodded. “If we set a series of charges along this passageway, we could create a blockage they would never get through.”
David knew Gary meant “they” as the Bow Clan, but it also included the Sun Clan. If they trapped one, they trapped both.
“Do you have enough explosives and detonators?”
“I’m going to run a series,” Gary said as he pulled the plastic explosives from his backpack. He pulled off a chunk and positioned it in a crevice. He pushed the detonator box into it and attached the two wires. He ran them about twenty yards down the passage and pushed another piece of explosive into the cavern wall and armed it. When he had used up his explosive block for five different explosions, he trailed the remaining wires off and attached them to the detonator he had used at the central temple.
From the other end of the cavern, everyone could hear the fighting growing closer. There were screams of pain and explosions of electricity. Rocks tumbled and feet pounded the ground. There was not much time left.
“Everyone, get down and cover your ears,” Gary ordered.
Everyone did as they were told. Gary flipped the switch to arm the detonator.
“Here goes,” he said.
He pushed the button and nothing happened.
CHAPTER 62
Gary covered his ears expecting to hear a thunderous explosion like he had heard when the pyramid exploded. This if for my friends, he thought, and for a brief instant he pictured the bodies of Alex, Lou, Billy Joe, and Jared sprawled by the sump. His mind wouldn’t allow him to imagine Christine’s destroyed body displayed on the outside of the central temple.
Instead of the thunderclap, Gary heard a muffled curse from David.
Gary opened his eyes. He could hear the yells and screams from the fighting Sun Clan down the passageway. He saw flickering light from flameless torches and weapons.
“Nothing happened,” David pointed out.
“I know,” Gary snapped. “I must have pulled one of the first contacts loose because I was hurrying. I’m going to have to run down there and reattach them. Take this.” He handed David the detonator, “Be ready to flip the switch.”
He stood up and started jogging back down the passage. When he reached the first explosive charge, he saw where one of the contact wires had pulled free from the detonator box. As he spun the wire around the exposed metal post, he chanced a look at the fighting that was going on further down the passage.
He could see a mass of people moving around with arms and legs flailing. One man fell and was trampled beneath the crowd. There was no way to tell the good guys from the bad guys except for the color of the tunics they wore. How many of them would die in the explosion?
“Come on, Gary!” David yelled. “They’re getting close.”
Gary wanted to yell back that they already were close. The back end of the Sun Clan was only a dozen yards away. He turned to start back when a stray langher bolt hit him in the calf.
He felt a searing pain in his leg as he fell. He looked behind him and saw the fighting had moved even closer. In a few minutes, they would be past the first explosive charge, and then even more Sun Clansmen would die. The problem was they weren’t only men; there were women among them, too.
“Gary!” Sarah screamed.
She started to run toward him.
“No!” Gary yelled waving his hand for her to go back.
David jumped forward and grabbed Sarah to keep her from running into the passage.
“Gary, look out!” David called.
Gary looked behind him. One of the Bow Clansmen was charging him. Gary rolled onto his back and kicked out with his uninjured leg. He caught the Sun Clansman in the crotch. The man grabbed himself and fell to the ground moaning.
Gary rolled on top of the Bow Clansman and closed his hand’s on the man’s thin neck. He tightened his grip.
“This is for Christine, Jared, Alex, Lou, and Billy Joe,” he murmured to himself like a chant.
The Bow Clansman’s face actually began to show some color and Gary heard himself laugh. The pale man stopped struggling and Gary rolled off him.
“Come on, Gary!” David called. “We can’t wait any longer.”
Gary looked at the backs of the Sun Clan. They were too close now. By the time he reached safety, the Sun Clan would be between the charges. They would definitely be killed then. Gary stood up and instead of staggering away from the fighters, he ran toward them trying to push them to the ground.
“Gary!” David yelled.
“Blow it up!” Gary yelled over his shoulder.
Gary jumped on the nearest Sun Clansman’s back forcing him face down on the ground. He stood quickly, grabbed a woman and shielded her with his body.
He should have heard the explosion by now. Why didn’t they just do it and get it over with?
He heard a sharp crack. Quickly followed by another and another and another and another. The hard burst of air blew him off his feet and against the side of the chamber. His head slammed against the wall and everything went dark.
CHAPTER 63
David fell forward pushing Sarah away from the last explosion of rock. He doubted it would do any good if the cavern caved in around them, but it was the only think he could think to do.
He felt something fall on his legs. He grunted from the pain, but then he felt nothing as his legs went numb. Rocks rattled and bounced off each other. He threw his arms up to protect his face from the rocks.
When the rocks settled into an uneasy silence, David said, “Sarah, are you all right?”
He heard her cough and knew she was at least alive. “I’m fine. A little banged up. David turned on the flameless torch Ma´saw had given him for the retreat and
shined it in Sarah’s direction. Dust was in the air obscuring his view, but he could see her hazy form sitting against the far wall. She was holding her knees drawn up to her chest.
He turned the flameless torch in the direction of what had once been the path to Kuskurza. He saw nothing but a wall of rock in front of him.
He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t roll over. Something was pinning his legs. He groaned.
“David, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Sarah said.
“My legs are pinned under some rocks. I can’t move.”
Sarah scurried over to his side. She took the flameless torch from his hand and moved down to his legs.
David saw her try to move one of the rocks. She grunted, but the rock refused to move. David could have told her as much. He had tried to pull his legs free, but couldn’t. He was pinned down.
“You’re going to have to go ahead without me and bring back some help,” David told Sarah.
“But you don’t have any food or water. It will be days before I can get back here with help. You could die before I get back,” Sarah said.
“Well, I can’t go with you.”
“We could...” Sarah stopped talking and scurried back to David’s head. “The rocks disappeared.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I suddenly couldn’t see the rocks.”
David twisted to the side and looked at the wall of rocks pinning his legs. Although Sarah was shining the flameless torch on the wall, there were no rocks to be seen. How could that be? He could feel the weight of rocks on his legs.
The dark kachinas.
The dark kachinas had no form. They could slip through the cracks in the rocks like water or smoke. A physical obstruction wouldn’t stop them unless it was sealed with some sort of mortar. Of course, right now, there was no cement around.
David took the flameless torch and shined it on the wall moving the beam back and forth.
“Sarah, you’ve got to go and get help quickly.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’ve got to. The dark kachinas are coming through the rocks. Unless you get some help and bring back some more flashlights, they’ll kill me. I can’t run away from them this time, and this torch won’t last forever.” He grabbed her arm. “You can do me more good if you get help than if you stay here with me. I can hold them off for a while. Hopefully it will be long enough for you to get help and get back here.”
“But it will take a week to get back to the RV, and who knows how long it will take to convince someone to come back with me,” she argued.
“Then you buy the flashlights and picks and shovels and come back by yourself. We’ll have to do this ourselves. You’ve got to go.”
“No she doesn’t,” said a voice from behind David.
CHAPTER 64
Sarah spun around. She rubbed her eyes because she couldn’t believe she was seeing the five Hopi men standing in front of her, but there was Ethan holding a torch. He smiled at Sarah’s look of surprise.
Peter stepped forward from the group and knelt down beside David. “Are you hurt? Do you feel any pain?”
“No, I don’t feel anything,” David told him. “How did you get to us?”
Peter pulled a plant from his pouch and made David chew on it. After a few moments, his mouth seemed to go numb and the rest of his body soon followed. David wondered if this was the same plant Masani had given him to eat after he had fallen into the caves.
“I had a vision inside the kiva. I saw the dark kachinas escaping, and the Sun Clan running, and I saw you in trouble,” Peter explained.
“But how could you get all the way to Utah and then be able to follow our path through the cave?” Sarah asked.
“We didn’t have to. We entered the sipapu in the sacred kiva. We allowed our ko´pavis to open and Taiowa showed us the correct path to follow. We could not let you perish after everything you have done to help the Hopi.”
Peter waved to the others. They moved closer to the wall and began freeing David’s legs. The brightness of their lights drove the dark kachinas back even further so that the rocks could be seen.
“But the sipapu in the sacred kiva is sealed by a huge boulder. I saw it when I was inside,” David said.
“It was sealed by a large boulder. The Hopi sealed the sipapu and they opened it again,” Peter told him. “We will take you back to Oraibi. I’ll look at your legs there. You may have to go to the hospital in Winslow if the injury is too severe.”
“He’s free,” Ethan announced.
“Can you move your ankles and legs?” Peter asked David.
David tried and his legs did move, but the effort hurt him and his face looked almost as white as one of the Sun Clan’s.
“We’ll have to carry you out,” Peter said.
Another Hopi Peter called Joshua laid out a large piece of canvas with handles on each side of it. Then he and Peter lifted David onto the canvas so that he could easily be carried.
As they lifted him up, David said, “We should leave as much light here as possible. It will keep the dark kachinas back for a while, but then they will come after us. How far away is the sipapu?”
“About four days travel,” Ethan said.
“You have to seal the wall so the dark kachinas can’t get through,” David said. Or the Sun Clan, he sorrowfully reminded himself.
“That won’t stop them,” Peter said.
David shook his head. “Yes, it will, and it will last. It may not last long in the eyes of the dark kachinas, but it will be centuries before any gaps occur that they might squeeze through. And don’t forget the Sun Clan, either. If they still live, they will imprison the dark kachinas until Pahana returns to lead them to freedom.”
I’m free while they have to put their lives on the line for a world they don’t even know, David thought. I hope Pahana returns for them soon.
As if reading his mind, Sarah held David’s hand. “You did the only thing you could do, David.”
“I lied to them.”
“They’ll survive. They always have before, but for now, it’s finally over,” she said.
David nodded. “Not for them it’s not.”
Sarah looked back at the well-illuminated wall of rock. “Do you think Gary is still alive on the other side?”
David shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure he would want to be alive in that world. He seemed to have his mind set on destroying it. I only hope the real Pahana returns soon. The Sun Clan needs him.”
“He will.”
CHAPTER 65
David sat alone on the bench in the sacred kiva. The fire glowed brighter than usual in the center of the room. It was allowed to burn with open flames now, rather than simply red coals. He was alone in the sacred room. He shifted his body and winced. His ankle still hurt even though it was in a cast. One of the rocks had snapped his leg just above the ankle.
David stared at the open sipapu just waiting. He half expected to see the darkness in the hole overflow into the kiva as the dark kachinas escaped from their newest prison. The seal the Hopis had added to the stone wall had held so far. At least no dark kachinas had flowed onto the earth, and David prayed none ever would.
Peter had ordered that the fire in the kiva always stay lit. He was obviously not as confident in the seal’s ability to hold as everyone else seemed to be. Either that, or he was being extremely careful.
As David watched the sipapu, a man’s head appeared out of the darkness. Ethan climbed out of the caverns and sat down next to David.
“How’s it going down there?” David asked his friend.
“I’ve never heard so much praying or seen so many kachina dolls. Even if the dark kachinas do slip through the wall, they won’t go anywhere. The land is blessed, and the other kachinas, the good kachinas, will guard the way.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Do you go back today?”
David nodded slowly. “Don’t remind me.”
> “Why go if you don’t want to?”
“It’s not that easy. Right now, Sheriff Harding is probably investigating more murders than the county has had in the past five years, and he suspects I had something to do with them. He’s going to want to solve these murders quickly, and I don’t want him pinning them on me. I have to convince him that I’m innocent, but he would never believe the truth if I told it to him.”
“Then don’t,” Ethan said.
“What?”
“If he can’t prove anything against you, then you shouldn’t worry. He’ll either accept the truth or find some way to explain it away.”
“David. David, are you down there?”
It was Sarah calling him from outside the kiva.
“I’m here,” he replied.
“The truck’s ready when you are,” she told him.
David looked around one last time. “I’m ready.”
He hobbled over to the ladder and struggled up it. He had to hold tightly to the ladder and hop from rung to rung on his good leg. When his head appeared above ground, Sarah helped him get out. Ethan followed David out of the kiva.
Together, Sarah and David hobbled into the plaza where Ethan’s red pickup truck sat. Sarah helped David into the passenger seat, then climbed behind the driver’s wheel.
David looked over at her and smiled. She smiled back and made his insides feel warm. Ethan waved goodbye to them.
David thought about how surprised his mother would be this weekend when he introduced her to his future wife.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. R. Rada is a pen name for award-winning writer, James Rada, Jr. He has written five books of fantasy and horror. These include A Byte-Size Friend, The Man Who Killed Edgar Allan Poe, Kachina, and Kuskurza.
He works as a freelance writer who lives in Gettysburg, PA. James has received numerous awards from the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association, Associated Press, Maryland State Teachers Association and Community Newspapers Holdings, Inc. for his newspaper writing.