Earhart had stayed with her group, barely eking a survival by raising food in a few patches of Earth soil they’d managed to scavenge near the occasional portal that opened on the shore. Occasionally they supplemented their diet with either Earth or Shadow-side creatures that wandered through an open portal. Even that was strange, as once a small dinosaur had appeared before wandering back through another gate.
It was a quirk of the portals that these creatures could survive travel through them. Not long after she had arrived in the Space Between, one of the groups had tried going into one of the portals in an attempt to get back to Earth. The man swam out to the dark. Cylinder while the rest of the band lined the shoreline. He disappeared into the blackness, only to reappear seconds later, screaming in agony, his skin red and blistered. He died within an hour, and no one had attempted to enter a portal since. The portals, cylinders of black, usually opened in the large circular lake in the center of the Space Between, but sometimes they opened on land.
Earhart glanced up at the captured Valkyrie suit. One had to be shielded to go through most portals, especially because there was no telling where the portal would lead or what would be on the other side. The key question was which one led to the Shadow’s home? If they could figure that out, they could take the war to their enemy rather than constantly reacting to assaults.
Earhart thought back to her dream. She’d been powerless in the cockpit, which she knew was significant. Power was important, very important in this war. It was one of the things the Shadow sought from Earth time lines it scavenged. It was also what was needed to fight the Shadow.
Earhart glanced at a metal case next to the Valkyrie suit. She got up and walked over to it. She flipped up the lid and stared at the contents-crystal skulls, each set in thick foam padding. Nine of them.
Earhart reached into her Pocket and pulled out a small metal cylinder with runic writing on it. She unscrewed the top and pulled out a piece of parchment. A design was drawn on It-twelve small skulls, m a pattern around a center, higher point where there was a thirteenth skull. Earhart couldn’t read. He writing, but she knew what she was seeing. A formation of power using the skulls. What surrounded the skulls, though, was what was most interesting. Intricate drawings of warriors in battle against an encroaching darkness. There was also writing. Names.
Humans are at their best and most powerful when things are the worst and most desperate. Earhart had heard that not once, but several times. The voice of the gods. And that wasn’t all. She’d been directed via a vision to a portal, which she· d traversed in the protective Valkyrie suit. She’d come out t a graveyard — boats, planes, and other craft, all captured m a gate. She’d gone directly to the ship she’d “seen,” a long black ship with a single mast and a black cube in the rear made of black metal, the likes of which she had never seen. She’d found this cylinder there. A piece of the puzzle.
Not long after that, she’d also had a vision that had directed her to lead another raid on the Valkyrie people’s farm. She’d stolen a piece of equipment, a long thin needle with a loving red bulb on one end. She’d taken it through a portal and injected it into the womb of a woman. She’d gone back again to that time line for the birth of the woman’s children and had taken one of the children from the woman.
Earhart shook her head. She was doing as she saw in her visions, but she didn’t know exactly why she was doing all this. She had to trust that the Ones Before had a plan and she was one piece of making it happen.
And now it was time for her to implement another step in the plan. But there were twelve skulls in the drawing and she only had nine. Would it be enough? Earhart reached into the case and retrieved one of the skulls. She placed it in a pouch, which she tossed over her shoulder.
“You go?” Taki asked.
Earhart had learned the basics of Japanese prior to her flight-after all. George had arranged for her to spy on Japanese facilities during the trip-and had added to what she knew in her time here with the samurai. “Yes.”
“No?” Taki indicated the Valkyrie suit.
Earhart closed her eyes. The words had come the previous day, echoing in her mind. “This portal should be safe.”
“None are safe,” Taki said.
“I must go.” She handed him the cylinder. “It is not time for this yet.”
Taki took the cylinder. “Be safe.”
Earhart nodded and walked out of the camp, feeling the eyes of the others on her back. They knew if she wasn’t wearing the suit, she was going to a portal that was “safe.” A way out. However, what neither they nor she knew was what was on the other side of the portal. And because she was on a mission dictated by the ‘’voices,’’ they had to assume it was dangerous.
Earhart had been given the opportunity by Dane to travel back to his world and time with him, and she’d turned him down. She wasn’t quite sure how many of those in her camp would feel the same way.
The Inner Sea came into view. There were a half-dozen portals in sight, black columns rising from the surface upward toward the ceiling. They varied in width from three meters to one more than a thousand meters wide. Earhart paused as she noted something floating between two of the portals-a massive sphere more than four hundred meters wide. It was one l the Shadow’s craft used in traversing the portals. It had dropped here when Dane shut the portal from his world to wherever the Shadow had drained the ozone, and it was still here. Which indicated that the crew might not have survived. She felt a tingle as she stared at the sphere. And she knew immediately the sphere was important.
But not at the moment. She turned to her left as if drawn in that direction. A three-meter-wide black column was about fifty meters away. Earhart walked along the shoreline until she was opposite the column. It was just off the shoreline, and she waded out to it. When she was right next to it she paused. What if the gate was deadly? What if she went to a dead world, toxic to humans? The voice had told her she would revisit a place and near time she’d already been to, but what if it were wrong?
Amelia Earhart. Who had crossed oceans and nearly circled the world at the controls of her plane, cursed, then stepped forward into the gate.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PAST: 1861
The old mountain man with the.54 caliber Hawkins rifle in the crook of his arm towered over the dark-haired teenager at his side. They were deep in the Rocky Mountains, near the continental divide in the northern part of the land; those far to the east in Washington had labeled the Colorado Territory. Jim Bridger was a legend from the west coast to the east, the most well known mountain man in the land. He wore fine buckskin. With half the fringes gone. Used as expedient string for one thing or another during this trip.
“Tunes are changing,” Bridger said. His voice was rough unused to speaking much. He had never had a companion — until the boy came into his life.
The boy made no reply. His blue eyes scanned the land ahead, searching for a way up to the divide, which was about ahead. Searching for a way up to the divide. Which was about two miles to the west and five thousand feet above. He’d been with Bridger ever since he could walk. Gaining experience by his side, and he’d learned that when the mountain man spoke. Which was rare. He was imparting something of importance. They’d left St. Louis four months ago, heading west. On a trip the purpose of which Bridger had kept to himself. The boy’s name was Mitch Bouyer. A name given to him by Bridger. Mitch, because, as the old man said, it sounded like a man’s name, and Bouyer, because it sounded kind of French and deflected the rumor that the boy was half-Indian. Bouyer had no idea who his parents had been, nor had Bridger ever spoken about how he had come to take the youngster in.
Bouyer wore buckskin, too, but with a black-and-white calfskin vest over the shirt. The vest was a gift from the foster family he’d lived with in St. Louis for several years, and he took great care of it.
“It’s time for you to know your part in those changes,” Bouyer said.
“What do you meant Bouyer a
sked. Feeling a stir of excitement. He had learned the patience of a hunter and trapper from Bridger over the years, so be had never questioned the older man, accepting that if and when he chose to reveal things, he would, and not a minute sooner.
“I been out here for thirty-eight years,” Bridger said. “I found the Great Salt Lake in ’24. South Pass in ’27. The hot geysers on the Yellowstone in 730. I’ve crossed the mountains-” Bridger nodded toward the peaks ahead-“twenty-six times. Some say I’m lucky. Some say I’m good at what I do. I am both.” The words were simple, no sign of a boast ‘’But there’s more.” He turned toward Bouyer and tapped the side of his own head with a long, leathery finger. “I got the sight. That’s why you were brought to me. You got it, too.”
“Who brought me to you?’ Bridger had never spoken of bow be came to bringing up a boy not his own, and Bouyer had never raised the subject, simply happy to be in the company of a man who knew so much and wandered in wondrous places.
“Another with the sight. A woman.” Bridger laughed. “A ‘Very strange woman. She brung you to me when you was just out of the womb. I was on the Yellowstone, camped in for the winter with the Crow. You were still covered in your birth blood. I had to get a squaw who’d just given birth to feed you along with her own. Cost me quite a few pelts to keep you alive that winter.”
Bouyer put the stock of his own Hawkins rifle-a.50-caliber, but a genuine Hawkins nonetheless on the ground and leaned on it. “Who was this woman? My mother?”
“Don’t know. She wouldn’t say who your mother was. Nor your father, for that matter. She said you were special, but I saw that as soon as I set eyes on you. Felt it.” Bridger shrugged. “Can’t quite explain it. You know. You got the sight, t~. You hear the voices, the spirit voices, as the Crow call ‘em. I think you got it better than me, much stronger. Powerful medicine, as the Crow say. In touch with the Great Spirit, whatever that might be.”
Bouyer did know what the old man was talking about. Sometimes he had visions of things, visions that most would call dreams, but some of his came to be true. He’d learned to trust those visions and the feelings he got. He also heard things. Once, when recovering traps high up a mountain stream away from the old man, he’d heard a voice whisper “danger” and he’d stopped what he was doing and hid ridden by. Bouyer knew they’d have had his scalp if they’d seen him. He knew Bridger had managed to stay alive on the seen him. He knew Bridger had managed to stay alive on the voices.
Lately, he’d been having strange visions. Of many soldiers. Led by a man with golden hair. Soldiers falling into an Indian village. A village of many tribes, Cheyenne, Lakota, Crow, others. It was a strange vision because Bouyer knew those tribes would never camp together.
“What’s my part in these changes?” Bouyer asked. Bridger had brought him back to St. Louis as a baby and put him in a foster home for several years. He had been homeschooled to read and write and do math. Then, when Bouyer could carry a pack. Bridger had shown up one fall, wintered In the city, and then took him west. That was SIX years ago, and they’d covered many miles together, every spring heading west. Sometimes wintering out there, twice going back to St. Louis.
They worked well together on the frontier. Bouyer spoke little and Bridger even less. It was as if each knew what the little and Bridger even less. It was as if each knew what the words.
Bridger shook his head. “If I’d a known, I’d have told you long before now.”
Bouyer frowned. ‘’Then-” he paused as Bridger pointed.
“She who knows is up there.”
“Who? My mother? The woman who brought me to you?”
“One who has the sight better than us. Word’s been sent for us to meet. For her to meet with you.”
Bouyer picked up his flintlock. ‘’Then let’s be going.”
Bridger shook his head once more. “It will be dark soon. Best we rest. Go at first light.” His eyes narrowed as he looked to the north. “Besides, I see a storm coming.”
Bouyer looked in that direction but saw only blue sky and white peaks reflecting the setting sun. He had learned to trust the old man on such things, so he shrugged off his pack and set about making camp.
Gathering wood, Bouyer paused, feeling a warm breeze across his face, but he noted that the leaves on the nearest bush didn’t move at all. Strange. He picked up the Hawkins as he slowly turned, searching for the source of the strange feeling.
“Wrong?” Bridger picked up his own rifle.
“Don’t know. Felt something.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. Never felt it before. A warm breeze on my face, but there isn’t a wind.” Bouyer looked to the north. “There’s someone coming. I can feel him.”
Bridger put his rifle back down. “Your brother.”
Bouyer turned to the mountain man in shock. “My brother?”
“Sorta. The woman who brought you to me told me you were-” here Bridger shifted from English to Lakota-” one of two alike but not alike from one who came forth from one womb. Half of a whole that must come together.” He shifted back to English. “I figured that kind of to mean you might have a brother of some sort, given the way the Lakota speak.”
Bouyer wondered what else he didn’t know about himself, but he didn’t have a chance to dwell on it as Bridger continued.
“It would make sense if you’re up here that he’d be up here, too. Both drawn to the same place.”
“If-“ Bouyer began, — but Bridger cut him off.
“Get Some sleep. You’ll be needing it. Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day.”
* * *
The light snow touched Crazy Horse’s skin and melted, adding to the sweat pouring down his naked body and the steam that drifted upward. He moved slowly about the center pole, slapping each bare foot to the frozen ground with a solid thud. The two lariats from the top of the pole were attached to bone splinters thrust through his chest on either side. The splinters were not only under the skin, but imbedded into the muscle. As he leaned away from the pole, the skin was taut around the self-inflicted wounds. His eyes were closed, yet he walked among the arranged buffalo skulls without tripping over them, as if he knew the exact placement of each one.
His hands were painted red and black, in a pattern as if he had stuck them in a fire until they were scorched. Large black circles surrounded his eyes, and red tears were dabbed among the paint. He paused, turning to face the pole and leaning back, the bone pulling on the covering muscle and skin until they were four inches out from his body. The flesh held, even as he pushed backward.
He was on the fourth day of his private sun dance. Normally held by a tribe during the summer, Crazy Horse had come here alone, traveling far from his village. He could not wait for the next summer. Nor did he wish to dance with others, for he was seeking a vision, and he knew, deep inside, it was not a vision that could be shared.
Anger drove him.
He had chosen the center pole tree carefully. Straight and strong. He’d carefully cut off all the branches and stripped off the bark, a job usually done by elaborately dressed maidens. Then he’d fasted for a night before “attacking” the tree in the morning, firing several arrows into it to symbolically kill it. After that he cut it down and brought it to this open Spot. He placed a large buffalo skull that he had found on a hunt three years earlier on the top, tying off the lariats through the eye sockets. Then he placed it upright, sliding the other end into a hole he’d dug.
He’d arranged the rest of the skulls he’d brought, all from beasts he’d killed over the past several years, in five parallel lines facing east. The buffalo skull was on the top, facing west. The pole represented the center of the world, a connection between the heaven and earth, between the dancer and Wakan- Tanka, the Great Spirit. The skulls represented the powerful spirit of the buffalo, the beast on which the survival of the Plains Indians depended.
Once all was set he had taken two arrows and broken off e point with six inches of sh
aft. He’d pinched one breast between his fingers and skewered the point through on one side, then the other. Then he’d attached the lariats. He’d been dancing ever since.
The goal was two-fold: to have a vision while dancing and then ultimately to break free of the skewers by ripping them out through his flesh. But in the process, one was supposed to be reborn as the torture represented death. And Crazy Horse desperately wanted to be reborn.
His throat was parched, as he had long since drained the leather flask of water he’d carried within reach. His stomach was a tight knot, empty for days.
Crazy Horse stopped. Not from the pain, but because he sensed something. He took a step closer to the pole and slowly turned outward, the lariats sliding over his shoulder, fresh blood dripping down his chest unnoticed over dried blood.
For a moment he became aware of his surroundings, The pole was set in the center of a glade next to a river. It was ten feet high, a cottonwood stripped of branches and bark. A scattering of snow covered the ground and surrounding trees. Through the trees came a woman. She wore tan pants of some fine material and a leather jacket that was tattered and torn. She had a staff in her right hand that she used to support tom herself.
Crazy Horse took an angry step forward as he saw the woman more clearly and was jerked back in pain by the skewers. She was white, with curly brown hair, like the woman his mother had described who had visited at his birth, the one who had made the terrible prophecies and taken away the other who had been born with him.
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