by Steve Cash
“I’m not sure why I’m leaving this time.”
“It’s not the why that concerns me, Z. It’s the where. I don’t want to lose touch with you for another twelve years. I’m not a vain woman, but even I might be too old for you by then.”
We both smiled and watched Li and Solomon conferring with the conductor.
“Write to me,” I said. “Solomon told me Owen Bramley will be able to find us anywhere.” I turned to get on the train. Sailor and Ray were already on board. “Egibizirik bilatu,” I said.
“What? What does that mean?”
“It has something to do with a long-living truth.”
“I agree,” she said, standing up and opening her parasol at the same time.
As we pulled out of the station, I waved to Solomon and he gave me the new sign he had been using for “good business”; he gave me a thumbs-up.
Sailor smiled his sly smile and gave a silent nod through the window and a kind of salute to Solomon. Ray was pacing back and forth in the railroad car anxiously looking out both sides and taking his bowler hat off and on. He was nervous about something.
“What’s the matter, Ray?” I asked.
“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Why?”
“You seem edgy, that’s all.”
“Well, maybe I am, a little, I don’t know. It’s just that I. I never been to the mountains. Ain’t that odd? All this time and I never been to the mountains.”
“It’s not the mountains, Ray, and you know it.” It was Sailor who spoke and he spoke in a voice we hadn’t heard him use before — a voice of authority. He was staring out of the window, but he was speaking to both of us.
I looked at Sailor and asked, “What is it then?”
He turned his head and motioned for Ray to sit down, close, so he could see Ray’s eyes. He watched him as the train settled into a steady rhythm. We were nearing the western fringe of the city, where Victorian homes and trolley cars became small farms and cornfields and cattle.
“Ray is nervous because he knows where we are going. He knows we are going to meet some people, some Giza, who not only know who we are, but protect us. Not like Carolina and Solomon. He has known others like them. These people are Basque and he has only heard of them in legend or a story his mother may have told him. This makes him afraid because he is Egipurdiko, not Egizahar. Am I right, Ray?”
Ray looked sheepish. “Am I that easy to read?”
“No, no,” Sailor said, “your anxiety is natural. It is always natural. I knew your mother, or at least I knew her family in the Azores hundreds of years ago. They and others like them have always thought these Basque tribes, if they exist, favor the Egizahar over the ‘diko.’ That somehow, if you are ‘diko,’ you will be found out and harmed. That is wrong. First of all, they do exist, and second, they make no distinction between us. Unfortunately, only we make a distinction between us. It is an old, tired practice and needs to be done away with.
“No, Ray, you have nothing to fear from these Basque we shall meet. They are good, honorable people descended from the tribe of Vardules, simple shepherds really. And they would all give their lives to save Zianno and what he wears around his neck. They always have, they always will.”
I thought this was as good a time as any to ask him what had been on my mind for some time. “Why do they protect us? And if they do, why haven’t they come to me?”
Sailor turned the ring on his forefinger, pausing, then looked me in the face. His “ghost eye” was cloudy and swirling. “The answer to that,” he said, “is older than I. I only know that they know of us, they always have. The Basque and the Meq are like sky and water — each taking credit for the other’s origin.
“There are few left; few of them and few of us. And the few who are left honor the old traditions. The first one of which is, Zianno, you come to them — they do not come to you.”
“What do they know about the Stones? Do they know what we can do?”
“Of course. The Stones are a sacred mystery to the few Basque who know of them, as they are to us.”
“What do they think of someone like you? Someone who outlives them all for countless generations and remains a kid? A boy?”
“We have worked that out,” he said. “You will find out what I mean for yourself.”
Ray got up from his seat and walked the length of the car and back. He rubbed his hands over the soft velvet of the furniture and the burl walnut finish of the cabinets. “You say they’re shepherds, is that right?”
“Yes,” Sailor answered.
“Damn.”
The trip through Missouri went too fast. Every stream was blue and every tree was in full leaf and still colored a spring green, not the deep green they would soon be. We were treated like princes by the porters and given everything we needed. By the time we hit the endless, flat prairie of Kansas, we all agreed that if you had to cross this land, this was the way to do it.
In Denver, we were surprised to find that Owen Bramley wasn’t there. After what Solomon had said about him I expected him to be opening our door before the train had stopped. He did leave a telegram for Sailor though. It was sent from San Francisco and said, “Sorry didn’t make connection STOP Am waiting for extra cargo STOP Will meet in Boise STOP Owen Bramley STOP.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Sailor folded the telegram in quarters and placed it inside his boot just below the knee. “I’m not sure,” he said and then smiled. “We may have an unexpected guest.”
Just then, I felt a presence, a presence laced with fear — the net descending. I looked at Sailor and Ray and they felt it too. We instinctively looked around and through the crowd. Someone was watching us and it wasn’t the usual glance of curiosity. I searched the faces, at random, quickly, chasing the eyes that were following mine. And just for a split second, I thought I caught the razor-thin eyes of a man in a bowler hat, like Ray’s, staring back, knowing me. Then he disappeared in the crowd.
“Was that the unexpected guest?” I asked Sailor.
“I think not,” he said.
“Then what was that?”
“I do not know. Let’s hope our train leaves soon.”
“Does Solomon have any enemies?”
“I presume many, but that presence was directed at us. There is always danger when two or more of us who carry the Stones travel together. That is the first time I have felt danger since we met.”
“Have they been stolen before? The Stones, I mean.”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never, though it has been attempted a thousand times. The gems have always attracted the Giza’s attention.”
“But how would they know? How would they ever know where any of us were going to be?”
“Mistakes, inattention, carelessness, fatigue, taking time itself for granted, false security, the Fleur-du-Mal—”
“The Fleur-du-Mal!” I shouted.
“Yes, his greatest avocation is selling the Giza on a plan to steal the Stones, getting his money, and laughing as he leaves, knowing they will not succeed.”
“What stops them?”
“Our. abilities. and the kind of people we are on our way to meet. They and their ancestors are tireless sentinels.”
Solomon’s railroad car was recoupled to the appropriate line and we departed for the spectacular route through the Rocky Mountains and into the Great Basin and Salt Lake City. I watched Ray watch the mountains and I could tell he really had never seen them before. As we snaked through passes, only to find more mountains, more passes, more of everything, he watched in silence and awe and truly became twelve years old again.
I thought briefly of Mama and Papa, but not in a sad or nostalgic way; I felt that their bones inhabited a good place; a place of clean rock and water, pine, aspen, and hawks. Their material passage back to dust would be a good place for their spirits to rise.
Sailor rode through the mountains in silence. He was alone in himself, but his me
mories were crowded. He turned the ring on his forefinger sideways and stroked the priceless sapphire with the smooth part of his thumb.
We made a connection in Salt Lake and turned north toward the high desert and Boise, Idaho.
We arrived in the late afternoon. It was hot, dry, and windy. Sailor opened a window and a fine mist of grit and dirt blew in. You could feel it like sand in your eyes and teeth. Our railroad car was uncoupled on a side track and left by itself as the rest of the train pulled back on the main line. We stepped down from the car and looked around for our hosts. I saw people scurrying in and out of the station, holding on to their fedoras, Stetsons, bonnets, and scarves, most keeping a handkerchief over their nose and mouth.
Ray was holding on to his bowler too. “I wonder if it’s always like this?” he said.
Out of nowhere, a voice answered, “Not always, señor. In the winter it snows.”
We all turned at once to see a wiry young man of about twenty years old holding a red beret in his right hand and motioning us toward a wagon with his left. He and three other men on horseback, all wearing red berets, had appeared silent as shadows around the corner of the station.
“This way, please,” he said. “I will take you to the Aita.”
Sailor took a step toward him, squinting with his ghost eye. “Are you Pello?”
“Yes, señor, I am.”
“In the blink of an eye,” Sailor said, “I swear, Pello, in the blink of an eye you have become a man.”
It was odd. I had never seen it before, but the young man, who looked to be at least Sailor’s older brother, maybe even a young father, was self-conscious and slightly embarrassed, as he would have been if an uncle or grandfather had made the same remark.
Sailor turned to me and told me he wanted to check and see if Owen Bramley had sent a message. He left for the station and the Basque men dismounted and loaded our things onto the wagon. Sailor was back in minutes and I couldn’t tell from his expression whether there was a message or not. He jumped in the wagon and we headed south across the Snake River, trying to shield our eyes and mouths from the grit. The Basque didn’t seem to notice.
I asked Sailor what “Aita” meant and he said it meant Father. We were on our way to see the Father of the western clan of the tribe of Vardules. Most of them were sheepmen and many had emigrated from Vizcaya and Navarra in Spain. Cousins, nephews, sons, and daughters, all came and went under the tutelage and blessing of their “Aita.” Only this “Aita” hadn’t always been a sheepman. He had been a sailor in his youth and toured the world many times before he became “Aita.” Sailor knew him as Kepa, Kepa Txopitea.
We changed direction at a town called Riddle and headed east and south, crossing two small rivers. The sun was low and the mesas to our west cast shadows across the basin ahead of us. Just at sunset, we veered toward what appeared to be a single mesa at least twenty miles long, but as we came closer, turned out to be two mesas, running parallel and staggered.
We rounded the end of the first mesa on a narrow, well-worn trail and a world within a world came into view. Between the mesas, two miles wide and five miles long, was a valley, an oasis, a green world of pine, aspen, and spruce with a bursting spring-fed stream winding down the center. So unexpected and dreamlike was the sight that Ray whispered, “Damn.”
We followed the trail that followed the stream back toward its source. Along the way, I saw thousands of sheep grazing in four different natural meadows angling up and away from the stream. I heard music at one point and Sailor heard it too. He straightened up sharply and we both looked in the same direction. It was behind the pines, among the rocks somewhere. Sailor smiled. It was the same melody I’d heard from a distance in Bermuda. It was Meq.
We slowed for the gate to a corral to be opened and closed behind us. We came to a sprawling set of buildings, all of them stucco with red tile roofs and supported with pine beams. Each was directly or indirectly connected to the other and together they loosely formed the shape of a horseshoe.
There was life everywhere. A campfire burned in the center even though there was still some daylight. There were men tending to sheep and horses; women carrying water and baskets of vegetables while yelling at children who were laughing and ignoring them; dogs, chickens, cats, and, on the veranda of what looked like the central building, an old man in a rocking chair, watching our arrival.
We pulled to a stop in front of him. Sailor got out first, then Ray, then me. The children gathered and surrounded us. Some were shorter than us and some taller. The men on horseback tied their horses and stood behind the old man’s chair. A small woman with gray hair pulled back in a braid came from inside the building wiping her hands on a cloth and smiling. She walked over to the old man and stood beside him.
He rose slowly, but no one moved to help. I could tell that even if he needed help he wouldn’t have asked for it or expected it. He was thin and wiry, but not weak. His hair was white and close-cropped and he had at least a seven-day growth of grizzled, white beard. He wore an old and unique vest of sheepskin and leather with colored symbols carved and dyed into it. Underneath the vest, he wore no shirt and there was a small tattoo of a bull on his left breast. Even in wide cotton trousers, I could tell he was bow-legged and he started walking toward us, then stopped abruptly.
“Miren!” he said, turning to the woman at his side. “My beret!”
She quickly ran inside and back, handing him an old red beret. He placed it on his head at a precise angle. Then, he walked directly to Sailor and said, “It is good to see you, old one.”
“You too, Kepa,” Sailor said in a monotone, then he smiled and added, “You smell like sheep.”
Everyone broke into laughter and the real greeting began. Sailor already knew half the crowd that had gathered and was introduced to the rest. Then Sailor introduced Ray to Kepa, his wife Miren, his four sons, one of whom was Pello who drove our wagon, three of his seven daughters and their children, and several other cousins, lieutenants, nieces, and nephews. He turned to me then and spoke to Kepa.
“I brought someone else, someone I think you should meet. It is a good time of year for such a thing.”
“It is a good time of year, indeed, old one,” Kepa said. “We have fat lamb and fresh water from the stream and even a full moon tonight. Let us meet.”
He walked over to me and looked down in my eyes. He was an old man, but still taller than I was and I met his gaze with my own.
“Your father was like a father to me,” he said. “I miss him as a blind man misses touch — I want you to know that. I am Kepa Txopitea, Aita in the tribe of Vardules, protectors of the Stone of Dreams. I welcome you to our camp. We would have met sooner or later, but I am pleased it is now. Now is a good time of year.”
“Yes,” I said, “now is the best time of year.”
We embraced and it was a formal embrace, but genuine. He backed up a step or two and opened his vest, nodding his head for me to look at his tattoo. I looked and it was magnificent; a bull as big as his fist in profile and drawn with skill and detail in now faded blues, blacks, reds, and golds.
“You see,” he said, “Zezen, the bull. Your name, your family,” and then he placed his open hand over his chest. “My heart,” he said.
Miren elbowed him in the ribs and made him introduce her to me, then she insisted we be shown to our rooms and be given fresh towels, soap, and water. We were treated like family, not guests. I appreciated the feeling and told Kepa so. He shrugged it off, waving his arm, and said, “I know you have been to sea, Sailor has told me; so have I, but wait ’til you see the stars here, Zianno. There are more than in the Fijis.”
“I’ve never been to the Fijis.”
“Then remember these — they will be enough.”
Our rooms were simple and clean. There was a single bed in mine with a window next to it looking out and across the space between the mesas. It faced west, and by turning your head from right to left, you could follow the stream all the way
up the valley to where the mesas seemed to join and the stream found its source.
I sat on the bed to take in the view and almost sat on a cylindrical leather case lying on the blankets. It was very old, about eighteen inches long, and divided into two sections held together with brass clasps. Slipped underneath the case was a note folded in two. I read the note and it said, “For the Shepherd of the Izarharri — Good for wonder, good for wolves!”
I opened the leather case carefully. Inside and fitting perfectly in a molded purple velvet lining was a single-lens telescope in two parts, one sliding into the other. It was made of brass and highly polished. The craftsmanship was exquisite and there were no markings on it except for two tiny initials engraved near the eyepiece: A. L.
I held it in my hands and it felt somehow familiar. I extended the two sections and looked through it to the west where the sun had set and the first few stars were appearing. Old as it was, it worked perfectly.
I put the telescope back in its case and walked to Sailor’s room where he had changed clothes and was lacing up his boots.
“This was lying on my bed,” I said and handed him the case. “This was with it.” I gave him the note. He read it and smiled.
“What does ‘Shepherd of the Izarharri’ mean?” I asked.
“Izarharri is the old word for Starstone. You are the Shepherd, the caretaker, of the Starstone. Kepa wants to give you something in recognition of this, something priceless to him. Therefore, he gives you his telescope; the same telescope that your father gave to him years ago.”
“My father!”
“Yes, and it was given to your father in the seventeenth century by Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher, who in turn had it given to him by Anton van Leeuwenhoek. It is very rare and of very good quality for its time. Look, there by the eyepiece, you can read the etched A and L.”
“I know, I saw it. I can’t keep this, you know. Even if it was my father’s, it must mean too much to Kepa for me to accept it.”