by Clay, Verna
Spirit Tree
of the
Red Rocks
"Red Rocks Trilogy: past, present, FUTURE"
Verna Clay
Sometimes things get worse before they get better…
Spirit Tree of the Red Rocks
Red Rocks Trilogy: Past, Present, FUTURE
Copyright © 2015 by Verna Clay
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
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Published by:
Verna Clay
Cover Design:
Verna Clay
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CanStock: BVDC
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Preface
Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek (near Sedona) are two of my favorite places. In 2014, while spending time with friends in Sedona, I was inspired to write a story that would unfold under the shadow of the red monoliths, with the timeframe being the late 1800s before the town of Sedona was established.
While writing Healing Woman of the Red Rocks I decided to create a trilogy, with the first story taking place in the past, the next in the present, and the last in the future. The first book required research of several Arizona locations, including Fort Apache, Fort Verde, the city of Globe, and more. To say I had fun visiting those places would be an understatement.
In Song of the Red Rocks my characters remained mostly in Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek, so I included some interesting tidbits of history from those towns.
The location of the final story, Spirit Tree of the Red Rocks, is quite interesting. It begins in an underground city somewhere in Arizona and ends in a valley under the shadow of the red rocks. The tale is futuristic and stars a man named Bren (just Bren) and Violet Morningstar. Violet, a scientist, is descended from the characters from books one and two, and she is on a mission to help save the earth after a natural disaster drove everyone underground hundreds of years earlier. Since the genre for this series is western, I wondered how I could merge futuristic with western, and one day my muse showed me how. So, dear readers, this story melds two genres.
As for Bren, the hero, there is much to be discovered about his past, and when he finally unburdens himself to Violet, she is determined to love him unconditionally.
I hope you enjoy Bren and Violet Morningstar's futuristic journey as they search for the Spirit Tree.
Verna Clay
Table of Contents
Preface
Prologue
1: Choose Your Path
2: Perhaps
3: Sweet Dreams
4: Salty Air
5: Frannie in the New World
6: Rio Bravo
7: Onward
8: First Glimpse
9: Spirit Tree
10: Raven Sees
11: Crossed Fingers
12: Defeat
13: Permission
14: Waking
15: Smoking Gun
16: Secret Laboratory
17: Abduction
18: Stink
19: Claustrophobia
20: Upward
21: Here Comes the Moon…
22: Here Comes the Sun…
23: Tour
24: Plant Detective
25: Caught
26: Westward
27: Sliver of Ribbon
28: Seeing Red
29: Twinkle of Stars
30: Searching
31: Alone and Lost
32: Magic
33: Eyes Closed
34: Providence
35: Reunion
36: Phoenix
Epilogue
Author's Note
Healing Woman of the Red Rocks (Past)
Song of the Red Rocks (Present)
Novels and Novellas by Verna Clay
Prologue
August, 2711
Somewhere underground in what was once the State of Arizona.
Dr. Violet Morningstar reviewed the mathematical formulation she had completed the day before and the Artificial Intelligence's simulated test results that were now displayed on her data screen, and gasped. Speed reading through the AI's analysis, her heart pounded and her breath came in pants, as if she'd been running a long distance. Over the next six hours she reviewed every detail of her formula for faulty data…and found none.
For the next week she kept her findings to herself, still reviewing the results. Finally, on the eighth day she called in two colleagues to review her work. Two weeks later she was summoned to the director's office. Dr. Kilgore welcomed her and motioned her to a seat. Drs. Via and Black were already seated.
After greeting everyone, Dr. Kilgore, a gaunt elderly gentleman, cleared his throat and said, "Dr. Morningstar, as I'm sure you are aware, this meeting is with regard to your latest research results." He nodded toward the other doctors. "Your fellow scientists have meticulously scrutinized your formula equations and the AI's analysis report, and presented them to me." He paused, inhaled deeply, and continued, "I'll be pronouncing your theory as viable to the Board and making recommendation that funds be provided for experimentation."
Speechless, Violet placed her hand over her heart.
Dr. Kilgore's stern expression suddenly morphed into a smile. In a gesture Violet had never seen, he reached across his desk and held his hand out to her. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she gently enclosed her fingers around his thin ones.
With tears brimming, Dr. Kilgore said, "You've given us a breakthrough, Violet. There's hope that the earth can be terraformed."
1: Choose Your Path
December, 2714
"Dr. Morningstar!" called Therese, Violet's assistant, as she rushed out of the elevator that had transported her over a mile below the Project Green experimental site and into Dr. Morningstar's laboratory. "I just came from Project Green and the plants are coming along fabulously. The soil has not rejected any of the seeds, and sprouts of corn are bursting forth. It's simply wonderful!"
Violet grinned at her third year graduate assistant and said with a note of caution, "It's wonderful now, but remember the last project; the plants died two weeks after germination."
"Yes, but that was before your latest adjustment to the soil crystals. And, as my mother always reminds me, 'Pessimism kills the soul, optimism grows the spirit. Choose your path'."
"Well, since you put it like that, I guess I choose optimism. I only wish I could visit the surface lab to see for myself."
"Actually, I'm glad you're not allowed. We can't risk anything happening to you. There's still too much radiation in the atmosphere for humans, and the required hazmat suits and breathers are uncomfortable. They take away any enjoyment of being on the surface."
Violet reached for a synthesized carrot, offered one to her assistant, and said, "Hopefully, we'll soon be eating real carrots."
Almost month later Violet's optimism suddenly plummeted. The corn's fantastic growth had ended and, as in every other experiment, began to shrivel. The only bright spot was that this latest batch had survived longer than any other over the past two years of experimentation.
A few days later Violet was summoned to Dr. Kilgore's bedside where machines kept him alive. His body, useless and emaciated, was in stark contrast to his alert and vibrant mind. With the aid of brain stimulators, he spoke to Violet via a large data screen.
Good morning, Violet.
"Good morning, sir."
It appears our latest results are not as expected.
"No sir. I'm sorry."
You have nothing to be sorry about. You have brought us closer to reversing the damage from the 2172 radiation burst than anyone. The scientists of that era expected damage, but nothing like what happened. Never could they have imagined that by the next century the survivors would be forced to live underground. It's a paradox, Violet; the sun gives life, but it also takes life.
Violet gazed into Dr. Kilgore's eyes and felt close to tears. Soon, the machines keeping him alive would no longer be able to sustain him. A man Violet had once considered brash and harsh had proven to be anything but that. And she remembered the exact day her opinion of him had changed—the day he'd clasped her hand when he'd announced her research viable.
Violet, I see tears in your eyes. You should not weep for me. Soon I will join my family who passed long ago, and believe me; I am ready to move on. I informed the Trustees yesterday to begin preparing my successor to assume my duties.
A tear trickled down Violet's cheek. "I'll…I'll miss you, sir."
A smiled twinkled in Dr. Kilgore's eyes.
After all these years, don't you think you should call me George?
"Yes sir, er…George." She smiled tremulously and reached to touch his cheek.
2: Perhaps
March, 2715
"I'm sorry, Violet," said Dr. Brownstone, a pioneering physician in the treatment of radiation influenza and also a friend. "I've studied your case from every angle and the only solution is cryogenics until a cure is discovered."
"And if I choose not to be frozen, how long do I have?"
"Maybe six months or a year at the most. But really, you don't have that choice. You know the Board will insist on cryogenics because of your research. You're the only scientist who has had a breakthrough in soil preparation for terraforming. You're the expert, honey. We need you—the world needs you."
Lying in bed that night, Violet stared at the pseudo stars above her head and then reached for the remote on her nightstand to switch the program to dark clouds and the sound of pouring rain. At the age of thirty-eight, after all the precautions to keep her healthy, she was dying. For several weeks she'd suspected that she suffered from a disease which at one time had killed thousands each year, but was now controlled to only hundreds.
Over the years, in her community of around twenty thousand, she had remained a private person, but now she wondered what her life would have been like had she made friends and enjoyed life—such as it was underground. Since childhood her driving ambition had been to discover the secret to rejuvenating the topsoil of earth to sustain plant life again. Even before "The Great Solar Flare," or "The Incident" as it was also referred to, the scientific community had amassed a bank of seeds ready for planting. But the soil still refused to cooperate with regeneration efforts that had been ongoing for years. And because of that, the DNA of fauna could not be cloned. Animals needed a regenerated earth to sustain them.
Violet stared at the swirling storm clouds above her head and listened to the pelting rain—all computer generated. A tear slipped down her cheek and she turned her face into her pillow. Although recriminations were apropos for her loneliness, she had none. She could wish for friends, a lover or husband, children, but if given the chance to start over, she would choose the same scientific path and long, grueling hours of relentless research.
And she knew the reason why.
Closing her eyes, she relived the stories told by her father and mother and maternal grandparents. Only her mother remained now and they often imagined the lives of their ancestors through the stories that had been kept alive by retellings from generation to generation. Of course, the stories were probably so embellished upon as to be fiction—but what if there was a grain of truth?
For Violet the tale of how her grandparents—many, many generations past—had sailed from Ireland to America, had held her fancy since childhood. But it was the recounting of how their daughter Frannie had literally dreamed of a home in the untamed western lands of what would become the United States that always captured her imagination. And as far back as her mother could remember only one daughter had been born in each generation, a uniqueness specific to her family that also included eyes the color of pale blue to aquamarine, depending on the lighting or the woman's emotions.
Violet squeezed her eyes shut and conjured up visions of the great monoliths in the area once known as Sedona. "The Incident" had destroyed almost all computer information and only a few books about Sedona had survived over the years. She often visited the Library of Beautiful Things to read and ponder the replicas of precious originals. Once, because of her status as a scientist, she had been allowed to visit the Antiquities Room to view the originals preserved under glass. It had been the second most amazing highlight of her life, the first being the discovery of the specific crystalline elements necessary to rejuvenate the soil to allow for terraforming—at least in theory. In the beginning she had been so sure that her calculations for each element were correct, but now, after countless experiments, she seemed no closer than at the beginning.
Violet sighed and changed her overhead landscape back to the stars of the Milky Way. "So beautiful," she whispered. So beautiful and so phony. If the computer generated night sky is this magnificent, think of what the real one is like.
Frustration clawed its way into Violet's heart and she wanted to scream at God, at the Universe, a Higher Power, at all the names people had invented to describe the indescribable. Without earth's soil performing its magic of sustaining vegetation, the inhabitants of planet Earth were doomed to live underground and only experience computer holograms of what had once been real and vibrant. The earth needed vegetation to create more oxygen. Yes, the ocean was renewing itself and providing purifying oxygen, so why not dry land? What was the missing element?
In six months to a year she would be put into cryogenics for an indeterminate period until a cure for her disease was discovered. Would it take weeks, months, years, decades, centuries? Would it never happen? Her only comfort was in knowing that if she hadn't solved the mystery before her cryosleep, others would carry on her research. Perhaps she would awaken to a new earth, beautiful and loved by its caregivers. Perhaps all the lessons from the past would have meaning to earth's inhabitants. Perhaps the animals whose DNA had been preserved could roam their habitats without man bringing them to the brink of extinction again.
Perhaps…perhaps…perhaps. There were no guarantees about anything.
3: Sweet Dreams
Eight months later…
"You won't feel anything but drowsy," said the lead technician in the cryogenics unit. Violet simply nodded and stared at the coffin-like enclosure before her. Only the week before she had paid her respects to Dr. Kilgore's ashes sealed in a small canister inside a crypt in the burial cavern. Speaking to his ashes she had ridiculously argued with him about allowing her body to be preserved. Before his death, they had debated the issue. She'd wanted to remain active in her scientific research until her own death, but his arguments against it always outweighed hers. Even now, from beyond the grave, she could hear him elaborating reasons for her continued survival; the main one being that she had brought terraforming closer to fruition than anyone else, and if she died without success there was no guarantee others could take her place. She had the ability to "think outside the box," as he so succinctly stated. But his most convincing argument rang again in her mind. Did she really want to close the door to someday walking the New Earth?
The technician said, "My name is Andrea Lansing, Dr. Morningstar. And I want you to know what an honor it is being chosen to sleepnitize you." She hesitated. "Now are you sure you don't want to call someone to be with you during this time?"
"No, but thank you. I've already said goodbye to my mother." She smiled sadly. "Well, actually, we never say goodbye, we say, 'I'll se
e you later'." Violet's heart hurt. Seeing her mother again wasn't a given, but with proper implants and medical treatment, the eighty year old could live to be well over a hundred. However, Violet had no guarantee that the cure to radiation influenza would be discovered within that timeframe; just as there was no guarantee that the cure for earth's soil would be discovered. Perhaps she would sleep and never wake again. Perhaps an environmental anomaly would destroy the earth and everything on it. She sighed and again pushed those thoughts from her mind. She was tired of all the "perhaps" scenarios.
The technician said, "I'm ready when you are, Dr. Morningstar. You'll need to turn around and back into the enclosure."
Violet inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, opened them again, and then did as instructed by Andrea Lansing. When the tech placed a strap across her shoulders, she lowered her lashes and concentrated on relaxing. Her heart had started pounding and her increasing anxiety was making it difficult to breathe. Maybe it had been foolish of her to forego the anxiety pill.
Andrea bent to fasten a strap across her ankles. "Now, don't you worry about anything. People are put into cryogenics every week and others revived. The patients tell us it's just like going to bed and getting the best sleep ever."