Mountain Echoes (The Walker Papers)

by C. E. Murphy

  “I’m still not used to this. I know it’s been more than a year and I should probably have adjusted by now, but I still feel like I’m running to catch up. There are so many fires burning, and apparently I’m the one with the skill set to put them out. If I could just get them doused so I could sit back and breathe for a while, maybe I could take the time to be impressed. I’m just afraid if I take the time now I’ll lose whatever handle I’ve got on things. I have to be sarcastic and unimpressed so I don’t scare myself into immobility.”

  “It might be easier from the outside,” he conceded. “I can afford to be impressed, from out here. But you should be proud of yourself, Joanne. You’ve come a long way.”

  “‘Joanne.’ That’s not fair. I can’t get my head around the idea of calling you Michael.”

  “You’ll adapt. I’ll wait.”

  “Good, because I think you’re going to have to. Maybe when we get back to Seattle we can practice. I’ll say Michael and you’ll turn around and respond naturally, just like it was your name or something.”

  “We don’t even have to wait until we get home.”

  “No, I’m sure that’s important. I’m sure there’s some kind of rule about not making drastic changes to your lifestyle when you’re not in your home environment, because otherwise it won’t stick when you go home.”

  Morrison laughed. “All right. We’ll work on it being all right for you to be impressed that we’re time traveling first. Time traveling, for God’s sake, Walker,” he said, and suddenly sounded like a kid, bubbly and full of excitement. “We’re stuck at the beginning of European contact with the Americas. That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned against his chest and wrapped my arm around him, pulling myself closer. “Yeah, actually, I guess it kind of is. We should...” I laughed. “We should go find a rock in this valley and carve our initials in it, or something, and check for it when we get home.”

  I could hear Morrison’s grin. “In the morning.” He curled his arm around my shoulders, nestling me close, and fell asleep with the efficiency of a soldier. I stayed awake a while, listening to him breathe, watching the moon edge across the sky and the bands of the Milky Way change colors, until movement caught my eye. I pushed up a few inches.

  The elderly shaman was watching us with a smile. She nodded at my sleeping partner, tapped the side of her head like she was suggesting the man had wisdom worth listening to, then slipped away into the darkness. It wasn’t until morning that I realized she’d built a power circle around us again, keeping us safe from nightmares and restless sleep.

  * * *

  It also wasn’t until morning that I thought to ask how far north the scouts meant, when they said they’d seen war to the north. The answer came back days, and I was a little numb with worry as we accepted some water skins and deer jerky to see us on our way. We followed the river until it disappeared into the hills, me silent and Morrison surprisingly chipper. When the water went underground, he stopped and scraped dirt away until he’d exposed rock, then crouched by it thoughtfully. “What is this, anyway? Granite?”

  It had been a long time since my high school geology classes. I peered at the rock. “I think so. Granite and, um. Quartz, maybe.”

  “Quartzite,” Morrison suggested. “That’s the sparkle in the stone. So I’d need a diamond cutter. Can you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, blue eyes mirthful. “Carve our initials in a heart, Walker. Leave a mark to know ourselves by.”

  “Oh. Oh! Really? I was joking.” I leaned on the exposed rock beside him, palms against it, feeling the slow ancient wearing down of the mountain. Its patience ran deep. Much deeper than my own, and made me think that, “Initials in the rock seems kind of crude.” The mountain’s life echoed in my hands, undisturbed by the idea of being carved. It didn’t mind what I did to it—it would endure far beyond my brief years, but that was why I didn’t want JW+MM carved into it forever.

  Morrison straightened up, looking faintly disappointed. “If you say so.”

  “Hey, Mr. Pouty Pants. Give me a minute before you get all sullen.” The stone was surprisingly malleable under my magic’s questing pressure. I’d done body work on dozens of cars, and the mental process wasn’t so different. Heat bent metal, water pitted stone; I combined the images to build cold fire in my palms, and spread it out across the exposed rock face. Stone shifted and deepened, lines melting into existence instead of being chipped or ground. After a few minutes I released the magic and stepped away, letting Morrison examine my handiwork.

  His smile was slow in coming, but as strong as the hills themselves. He pulled me into his arms, offering a kiss to go with the embrace, and we departed the valley hand in hand, the petroglyphs left behind.

  * * *

  “We’re never going to get there.” Morrison surveyed the mountains running north and east of us and shook his head. “Even assuming we don’t run into unfriendly natives, I don’t see how we’re going to cover the distance we need to. If Aidan’s out there being used as a repository, we’re on a schedule.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Not about the schedule. The schedule’s not our problem. He got pulled where they wanted him, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to lock on and go with him. Which is probably just as well, because it would have stranded you in that valley, out of time and with no idea what had happened. So I’m going to work under the assumption that if there’s war, death, misery and mayhem going on, that they’re going to stay there sucking it down until they’ve drained everybody dry.”

  Morrison eyed me. “All right. If the schedule isn’t the problem, then how do we solve the problem of traveling through hundreds of miles of unfriendly territory?”

  “You’re not going to like it.” In fact, he was going to not like it so much I couldn’t help grinning with anticipation.

  He took in the grin and became suitably wary. “What is it?”

  “You made a very pretty wolf, Morrison.”

  It took a full five seconds for the implication to sink in. Then his eyes widened with genuine horror. “Oh, no. No way, Walker. No way are you turning me into an animal again.”

  “Wolves can travel thirty miles a day just hunting, and they’re top-of-the-food-chain predators. Nothing except humans and maybe a desperate puma is likely to attack one, whereas as humans we’d be much more vulnerable to any predators and very, very slow by comparison. Thirty or forty miles a day in clear territory, which the pre-Columbian Eastern seaboard forests are not. Do you have a better idea?”

  Dismay stretched Morrison’s mouth downward. “Walker, do you have any idea what happened while I was a wo—” Color stained his cheeks and his mouth snapped shut. I suspected we both very much wished he hadn’t started to ask the question.

  I didn’t, in fact, know what had happened. Not specifically, because about thirty seconds after I’d gotten him back into human form I’d jumped on a plane to Ireland, and we’d mostly been talking about me since we’d been reunited. I had an unpleasant idea of what might have happened, though. Tia Carley, the werewolf I’d ended up neutering, had been as attractive a wolf as Morrison, and I was pretty sure she’d taken a fancy to my boss. There was no delicate way to ask, and besides, I really didn’t want to know. After a few seconds of mental fumbling, I answered with what I did know: “You saved five people’s lives while you were a wolf, and got me out of that cave system in one piece.”

  Some of the color faded from his face and an acknowledgment pulled at one corner of his mouth. I didn’t know if he needed a way out, but I was more than happy to give him one. If there had been wolfy hijinks with him and Tia, I did not want to know. Not one little bit at all. He said, “I also terrorized some security guards and half a dozen Seattle cops,” though most of the discomfort had gone out of the confession.

&
nbsp; “I’m just glad nobody shot you. I was scared to death someone would. I’m really sorry about that, Michael. I had no idea it would happen. The dance performances...”

  “Were transformative.” Morrison’s eyes sparkled, noticing how I’d managed to use his first name, but neither of us said anything, like it was an elephant in the room. “It’s all right, Walker. I got over being upset right around the same time you said I love you.”

  It was my turn to blush. I bet we could stand here for a week taking turns at it. “Does that mean you’re going to let me turn you into a wolf again?”

  He groaned, turned to the vista, and pushed his hand through his hair. “Do I have any choice?”

  “Sure. I could try turning you into a puma or a horse or something, except a horse couldn’t get through the underbrush well and I bet anybody who saw us might take a shot at a puma with your coloring. Ghost puma. Anyway, I think the wolf was your choice, which suggests you’ve got an affinity, so it’s a better idea to try it.” A grin started working its way forward. “Is that your mental image of yourself, Morrison? A lone wolf, standing against the tide of evildoers? That’s very teenage epic fantasy of you.”

  He gave me such a flat look I laughed again. “It could be worse.”

  “Really. How?”

  “You could think of yourself that way and not be a hero.” I kissed him while he looked flummoxed, then got my drum out and beamed at him. “Take your clothes off.”

  “What?”

  “Take your clothes off. They don’t transform with you. You can carry them once you’re shifted.”

  For a while his expression remained steady and patient, like if he waited long enough there would be an explanation as to how he had ended up on the back end of American history about to strip naked and run through the woods as a wolf. When it became clear no explanation was forthcoming—because really, he already knew the answers—he took his clothes off while I fought between watching unabashedly and trying to find somewhere else to look.

  Watching won. He folded his shirt into his coat, toed his shoes off and stripped to his skivvies. He had an awfully nice body. Not overdeveloped, but not soft, either. Just right, like Goldilocks’s third bear. He said, “I’m not sure I’ve ever taken all my clothes off outside in broad daylight,” at the same time I said, “You know, I used to think you were kind of soft around the middle, but damn, Morrison.”

  Apparently we were both trying to distract ourselves from him taking his underwear off. It worked, anyway, and he sat down on the bundle of folded clothes, saying, “I knocked off ten or fifteen pounds last spring, after I realized the woman I was increasingly interested in was eleven years younger than me. I didn’t want to have a heart attack while she was still hale and hearty, if things worked out there. Your turn.”

  “My turn what?”

  “To take your clothes off.” He smiled at me. “If I’m going to sit here naked while you bang that drum, so are you.”

  I really wanted to find a viable argument, and really couldn’t. Morrison got a self-satisfied smirk as I pulled my shirt off, so I threw it at him. He caught it and folded it along with his own clothes. I muttered, “I don’t think I’ve ever taken all my clothes off outside in broad daylight before, either. Is this one of those things that’s supposed to bring couples closer together?”

  Morrison’s voice dropped somewhere below the belt. “That sounds like a better idea than shapeshifting.” Then, in a much more ordinary and amused voice, he added, “I didn’t know it was possible to blush that far down. You’re too thin, Walker.”

  I looked down and blushed even farther down. My navel was in danger of turning pink. “I didn’t, either. And I know. I keep eating, but all the shapeshifting really took it out of me.”

  “The shapeshifting?”

  “In Ireland.” There was a lot I hadn’t told him yet, and naked on a mountainside didn’t seem like quite the right time or place to do it. I started anyway, getting as far as “I,” and then ran into “Oh, hell.” I hadn’t drawn a power circle, and now I was naked. By the time I was done building one, I had moved beyond embarrassment into a comfortable Zen attitude, and clung to it with all my slightly Puritan little heart. Morrison tied our clothes and weapons into bundles, but otherwise watched the whole process with a grin that made him look about fourteen.

  The positive upshot of all that was there was a great deal of energy crashing around inside the power circle. Most of it was sexual and anticipatory, but it wasn’t difficult to channel it into shapeshifting magic. I called for Rattler, who awakened with a sense of approval. I wasn’t in the habit of doing things properly, like building power circles and working up energy to help ease a transition from one form to another, but this time I’d done it right and he liked it. That helped, too, and so did Morrison having gone through the transformation process once before. He knew right down to his bones that I could do it, and so his bones were surprisingly willing to adapt to the new shape I poured them into.

  There was no drawn-out painful half-man, half-wolf aspect to the change. Shamanic shifting didn’t work that way, and from what I’d glimpsed with Tia Carley, neither did werewolf transformations. It was one, then the other, with little more than a shimmer of magic between the two to mark the transition. My power washed over Morrison in a gunmetal bath and left a huge silver-white wolf in his place. He took a very manlike sharp breath, but otherwise held himself still, becoming accustomed to the new form.

  That was much better than the first time, when he’d understandably panicked, given in to the animal brain, and run like hell. Delighted, I put my drum into the bundle of clothes and weapons, then turned my magic inward, slipping into—

  Not a wolf shape. Wolves were not my thing. Coyotes were. That hit Morrison like a blow, even in wolf form, and I felt him withdraw emotionally.

  Frustration bubbled up inside me. That was twice already Coyote had come between us, even though there was absolutely nothing with Coyote to come between us. And I couldn’t address the problem now, because as far as I knew, even humans shapeshifted into animals couldn’t speak like humans while in the animal form. To make it worse, Morrison gave a cranky snort, picked up his gear and trotted away with it in his mouth, clearly saying, “Let’s get on with it, Walker.”

  I was going to bite him as soon as my own mouth was free. Thus resolved, I picked up my gear, too, and we ran into the forests.

  * * *

  My ill temper couldn’t hold a candle to the joy of running headlong through wilderness. We were both enormously large canines, weighing the same as we did in our human forms. The clothes were mildly inconvenient, and my jaw got tired, so the first time we stopped for a brief rest I shifted back to human form. It took a while to repackage everything, but then I slung Morrison’s gun holster on him with his clothes and weapons stuffed into it. He squirmed a bit, but looked more satisfied with the results, so I hung mine on a branch so I could walk into it once transformed. Morrison managed, after some trial and error, to latch the shotgun’s holster around my ribs, and we were off again.

  We didn’t change back to human form for two days, instead hunting, drinking and sleeping as canines. Very little disturbed us, and our supremely sensitive senses of smell allowed us to avoid anything that might have chosen to. I had no idea how much distance we covered. My thoughts simplified: we were hunting. When we reached the quarry, the hunt would intensify. Until then, nothing mattered but reaching it.

  On the third day, the scent of blood came into the air. Morrison and I both slowed, tasting it, judging it and naming it: human. It was still far off, but we were reaching our destination. Morrison cocked an ear and I shook my head. It was too soon to change back to humans. Too far to go, still. But we would have to be ever-more careful. Our size would make us seem dangerous, and Morrison’s brilliant white pelt would be a prize by itself.

  We knew
what we were approaching: the tang in the air told us.

  It was still a shock to burst into a mountain meadow and see a war being fought on the river plains below.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With Rattler at attention in the back of my skull, I changed to human form, then swiftly built a power circle around Morrison before calling up the magic to transform him. His first words were “Was that necessary?”

  “The power circle? Yeah, you need to see—”

  “The coyote.”

  For about three seconds I genuinely didn’t know what he meant. Then the top blew off my head and I flung my hands in the air. “For crying out loud, Morrison, are you serious? You’re thirty-eight years old! Are you really this insecure over my ex? I’ve known Coyote my entire life. He’s been my mentor since I was thirteen. He’s taught me most of what I know about magic. I’ve got an affinity for the shape through long familiarity, so what? It doesn’t mean I’m going to bail and go make little coyote puppies with him happily ever after. Seriously, you’ve been gnawing on this for three days?”

  “You wouldn’t turn me back into a man so we could discuss it.”

  I threw my hands up again. “Oh, my God! Really? You think I deliberately kept you in wolf form so we couldn’t talk about it? I just thought we were moving, Morrison, no reason to keep shifting back and forth. Canines have nice warm fur coats to sleep in, they hunt well, they can drink from streams more easily than humans. Are you serious? Holy crap, Morrison, seriously, where is the insecurity coming from? You’re the most secure person I’ve ever met. And I told you before, me, Cyrano, there’s nothing there. There could have been, in a whole different world, but no. It’s you, it’s been you all along, and I can’t believe you’re so damned worried about it! What do I have to do?”

  “Not shapeshifting into a coyote would help.”