“Ain’t no courtesy due you. No. The mountain lion will finish you. Leaving you alive will keep the meat warm.” Jesse tried to laugh, but couldn’t. “I have to go. Oh.” He fought the man’s shoes off and threw them down the hill after the gun. Then grabbing a fist-sized stone smashed the man’s right big toe. The man shrieked and swore, vowing vengeance. Then struggling to breathe through the pain, Jesse staggered off toward his camp.
We guided him through his haze of pain, kept his bleeding in check, and made him mobile as he needed. It seemed to take hours, but when he arrived at camp, we joined the healing ring, and began to work on him. A psychically gifted older girl became our instrument to open, clean, and close his many wounds. I used the Sound Language to adjust energies and flesh. Jesse stood outside his body looking on, astonished. I wasn’t sure if he would retain the memory of the experience. Laith spread his energies in ways I didn’t understand to provide a vast background that stabilized everything. His energies interfaced with the Earth, trees, and atmosphere, making what I did easier.
Slowly we knit my brother’s body back to one piece. He’d be sore, but functional. A couple of hours later we were done. When we left, my brother lay sleeping beside a small fire. The rest of the group sat back, tired but fulfilled. We communicated with the young girl, Felice, that rescue was on the way.
Back at Cheshire we met with our council to arrange for a rescue party. They would head out the next day. “I hope the General and Muldower weren’t too upset by my sudden departure,” I said to Florence. The last rays of the evening sun spread and died leaving soft twilight.
“They’ve seen enough of you to know something unusual needed your undivided attention.”
“If all goes well, we’ll have a new family joining us,” I said.
“How many in your brother’s family?” Greg Lopez asked.
“Eight. Jesse, Marcy, baby Lynn, three girls, and two boys. An excellent asset to our group. Do we have a house available?” I turned to Victoria.
“The aliens have volunteered to build a house. Perhaps we can have one waiting when they come in,” she said. “I’ll talk with Severin tomorrow.”
“The General and Muldower will be back tomorrow to meet with you, Jamie, and hope there will be no interruptions.” Florence eyed me.
“They were mad?” I asked.
“Muldower looked like he had some things to say,” Greg said. “You can’t repeat what you just did.”
“I apologize. Not someone to aggravate. I’ll see if I can make amends in his dreams.” Greg didn’t pull punches. A warning I had to take seriously. I wasn’t popular with Muldower in the first place. I didn’t like the man, but I had to work with him. The dreams of the Inquisition, the converso, and the young woman hadn’t done the trick. They had opened a door, but only a little. There had to be something more tangible. Something he could touch, something physical. There had to be a touchstone we could use. At a loss to figure out what to do, I asked the Powers-That-Be and my Entity for help and guidance. I spent the evening being preoccupied until Judith accused me of being depressed, made some catnip tea, and presented a plate of cookies. She flirted with me outrageously, and I finally told her my thoughts. She didn’t have a clue what to do either.
That night as much as I tried, little came to me . We went to breakfast, and found ourselves in the Dining Hall line behind Molly Tinsdale. “Lo, Jamie, Judith.” Her husky full voice betrayed everything about her.
“Lo, Molly. How goes it today?” I asked.
“Good. The adjustment you made helped a lot. I’m eating better. Thank you. Maybe you can do some more in the future when I figure out what I need.”
“Whatever you want,” I said. Maggie Molly Tinsdale, eighteen, used a wheelchair to get around. Her body had numerous problems, and I’d offered to make her whole again as much as I could. But she elected to have things done slowly. She was the most positive person I knew. She never felt sorry for herself, and was a leader in keeping us on even keel. She saw some friends, waved, and excused herself at the end of the cafeteria line.
We sat down with the our family. Abe, Victoria, Meg and Laith, Helen, and Mike Roseman. As we were finishing, Carson’s command chopper flew in, landed, and the whine of the rotors died. I knew there was a reckoning coming, but I had no idea what form it would take. During the night I’d learned Muldower had a daughter who’d died. He was so stricken, he seriously considered suicide, even to the point of loading a pistol and putting it to his head. But his daughter had intervened, and in an audible voice told him to stop. That she lived and he had work to do. This was twenty years ago. Since then he had yearned for her endlessly in his grief.
I knew the feeling. At the age of eleven, I’d lost my older brother. The pain was beyond belief and anything physical. It was almost unbearable. I cried for a month nonstop. The experience had forced me into the path I had taken. I was asked once what I wanted to be when I grew up, but my path was set with my brother’s death. I knew the only thing that mattered was to find out what really was behind the world and human experience. How it worked and why. To this day I’ve never remembered what else I wanted as a child.
After breakfast Molly joined us with her friends, rolling her wheelchair along with us to see who had come in and why. She rolled beside me and reached out squeezing my hand in reassurance. She knew my trepidation. I thanked her.
“What you thinking, Jamie?”
“Nothing really. Listening to a song. It’s going off in my head and won’t leave. Want to know the name?”
“Nope. Don’t want your song wrecking my head.”
I laughed. “Smart.” The song, They Call the Wind Moriah, kept repeating itself. All the mournful words. I wondered how long that would last.
We all wanted to see who had come and why. We knew the aliens would be along in short order as they always arrived in one configuration or another whenever Carson showed up.
General Carson and Colonel Randolph were already out of the chopper as we got there. We shook hands. As Muldower unfolded to step out of the vehicle, I apologized for my hasty exit the day before. I explained as simply as possible.
“So, Jesse is headed home,” Derek said.
“Should be here in ten or fifteen days,” I said. “Has a big family. Six kids.”
“Busy man,” Derek murmured.
I chuckled. “Not all his. He and Marcy have a baby girl, but have picked up five kids on the way out here. Quite a crew.” Muldower had met most of the people there except Molly. I made the introduction. “Mr. Muldower, this is Molly Tinsdale. Molly, Brian Muldower.” I saw Muldower suck in a great breath and turn pale, a gathering hope in his blue eyes. Molly stammered. Glanced at him strangely.
“Moriah,” she said. Muldower fell to his knees in front of her and began to cry, great sobs of release and buried his white head in her lap. Everyone stood back stunned.
I motioned everyone away. and explained in a low voice when we were out of hearing range. “Brian lost a daughter twenty years ago called Moriah. Molly, for all intents and purposes, is that daughter reincarnated.” We were all stunned by the reunion. We could see the connection between the two.
When Brian joined us in the Dining Hall a half hour later with a beaming Molly, he looked years younger. Here were the personalities of two Entities who had spent many lifetimes together changing roles and circumstances to learn, to be. Now, in this time, Molly provided the catharsis - creating the touchstone we needed with Muldower. Most of it anyway. There were unresolved issues still. Understanding the relationship of the Cheshire people to the aliens. The true intent of the aliens with our system. Some we didn’t even know, and could only suspect. Muldower, Carson, and Randolph represented our government, and they at least seemed to have open minds. We’d see.
Two hours later Carson, Randolph, and Muldower stood with us under the ramada of the Arms Shack while I introduced Severin and Astera who’d arrived in a small scout ship. “We didn’t want to disturb your reunio
n, Mr. Muldower. Very special,” Severin said.
“You were aware of what was going on, Mr. Severin?” Muldower cocked his head to one side, eyes narrowing.
“Not the specifics. Just that there was an important event taking place you’d planned.”
“Planned? I didn’t plan anything.”
“Not consciously, but unconsciously we often gift ourselves as you and Miss Molly did this morning. That can be quite rewarding,” Astera said. The tall woman stood relaxed, piercing eyes pleased. A strong feminine aura radiated from her athletic form. Molly sat in her wheelchair, watching us from the airplane barn.
“You have questions for us,” Severin said, running a hand through his short graying hair.
14
The next morning dawned with blue skies, and light fluffy clouds. I walked with Judith and Laith to the Dining Hall. The younger children had long since gone ahead. Greg Lopez showed up with his family and we ate together. Then at the Meeting House we went over the maps. I’d sent portions of myself out to check the best routes, and then I sketched these out on the map with distances, water sources, and shelter. We would monitor their progress, checking for jay hawkers and predatory wildlife like lions and tigers, who’d been released from private and public zoos, and thrived to feed on the local beasties including unsuspecting people. The soldiers from the fort killed them on sight, so they were few and far between. Predatory people were our biggest concern.
We would check as we did with our community, working out of our bodies, seeking those who might have hostile intent, diverting them through craftily devised dreams, and other devices such as weather, sending ideas and thoughts to aim them in different directions, causing dissension in their ranks, and making them fearful of soldiers and other larger forces.
“I arranged for Burt Clark to lead a patrol paralleling you. He doesn’t know it, but we’ll keep him properly close. I have a feeling this ... Castaway, they call him the Castaway, is not done with Jesse and his tribe. He is more deadly than any poisonous beastie in the wild.”
“What drives the man?” Laith asked, heating some tea water.
“He wants to finish getting Jesse, no matter what. It’s a thing of pride,” I said. “Completing what he sets out to do. He doesn’t expect to survive the experience,”
“A fanatic,” Greg suggested, dark eyes concerned in his heavy face.
“In the worst way. Religion has nothing to do with it. Everything is coldly calculated. Even to the use of his physical body.” I shook my head. “I tried to contact him, but got nowhere. His will and focus is implacable.” I could feel the supreme confidence, and utter contempt in the man for Jesse.
“His Entity?” asked Judith, bringing out a plate of oatmeal cookies, and setting them on the large white linoleum meeting table.
“Didn’t want to have anything to do with me.” I said, spreading a topographic map on the table. “Wants to see what this personality can do. How far it will and can go. Nothing to do with right and wrong. We have to protect our own here,” .
“Why not just have the army patrol go with us?” Laith rubbed his chin, and checking the pan of heating water.
“Makes more sense,” Helen said, handing out mugs to everyone.
“The Castaway won’t make his move if we have an army with us,” I said, bringing out a box of pushpins. “There’s a third party involved, but I’m not sure how it works. Someone worse than the Castaway. Puzzle pieces. I can’t fit them all together. One of the children is involved.”
“What do you have in mind?” Judith asked, putting a pot of honey on the table.
“Burt and his patrol are the key. I’ve arranged for Burt to take a sniper’s rifle. Planted the idea of a tiger seen in the area.” I looked at my people. “I’ll be along for the ride out-of-the-body. I can do more pulling strings from there. Burt’s Entity is amiable to helping.” The maturity level of a personality comes from the Entity. Burt was pretty far along, a mature personality. We had a good rapport. I was counting on that rapport.
“So what about using the Sound Language or recruiting other members of The Thera?” Florence asked. Charles and Mary walked in. Charles came over to study the map, towering over everyone. His ancient craggy face focused.
“It has its limits. There are natural blocks that Entities can use to protect their personalities,” Charles said. He traced a huge finger over the route, tapping a point about ten miles out. “This is a major game trail. Don’t linger. No telling what might be hanging around there looking for a meal.” He turned studying me. The physical changes with the Sound Language created an ageless physical body so finely tuned and controlled a person could consciously alter anything down to a molecular level. Charles nodded. “You have the scientist-priesthood back with extras. You may well need it.” He swallowed, essence memories flooding. “I’m glad it’s not mine. I will help as I can.”
We finished with our maps, and headed for the animal barn with Judith’s and Laith’s personal gear. By the time we arrived the two mules were loaded with food, water, extra shoes, clothes, sleeping bags, and tents. Three crossbows were tied to the packs. Shortly, the small pack train with Judith, Laith, and Greg Lopez threaded their way southeast over Mars Hill toward Route 66 and on up to Interstate 40 going west. I sent a portion of myself with them.
Then I went home to concentrate on the many threads that made up this operation. Sitting on the ancient couch with a mug of tea, I began to send portions of myself in the many directions I needed to bring everything into focus. Burt and his patrol were already on the road with one mule to carry their supplies plus a formidable sniper’s rifle.
Jesse, Marcy and their tribe were holed up, letting Jesse recover for a day. Their food stocks were almost gone. A thick-set man with a gag and hands bound behind his back sat tied against a pine tree. The children formed a circle around Jesse as he slept, facing outward, several cocked crossbows lay ready in their hands. Another man, thin with a scraggly beard, used binoculars to look for the Castaway. Marcy was nursing Lynn. A determined but not promising picture. Their will and positive mental attitude radiated.
I found the Castaway dragging himself along with his smashed rifle, knife, and wearing only one shoe. The other hung across one arm by its shoelaces. A smashed bloody big toe on his right foot made walking slow. A bloody piece of cloth from who knows where was tied around his swollen left bicep. Infected. He wore holey faded jeans with a torn denim shirt that was more of a rag than anything else. The man shivered with cold, hunger, and pain. Thin bearded face etched with fatigue, eyes red with fever, the Castaway willed one foot ahead of the other. His sense of direction was impeccable as he closed in on Jesse and his people. The man’s threshold for pain was not particularly high, but his focus and concentration must have made his Entity proud.
I tried to fathom the future, but was blocked. Not something I like to do. I knew General Carson was going to hang Hensley. It made no sense at the time but it happened. Sensing the future has a flow to it, effortless, like a soft Spring breeze. It’s just there. Intuition is an Entity-Soul thing. Trying to tamper with it doesn’t work.
I went over to the Meeting House. Taking out the map I placed pebbles for the various players. I moved them as they traveled. Having portions of myself keeping track of everyone helped, but didn’t tell me their thoughts or give any inkling of the future. Helen, missing Laith, arrived. Then Victoria, Meg, and Abe. I tapped the map, explaining my thinking, and asking for any input they might be picking up.
Toward late afternoon I was summoned to Burt Clark’s patrol. Someone was trying to influence two of the soldiers to suggest they head north instead of west. I followed the influence, and found a personality fleeing the scene. This personality headed for the alien spacecraft where clever shielding made me lose it. I headed back to the patrol, making sure of their direction. The interfering personality was the same one that had helped Ryan shove the knife into me. Thera. A scientist-priest. Intent on destroying me and mine. This wa
s more than mere mischief, a calculated campaign mounted for one end only - my physical destruction - and to sabotage what the aliens had come to do. I got a breath of an identity, a partial. Like part of a fingerprint. Not much, but something. I would always keep this and could test it on any personality to see if it completed the picture.
“You look pleased with yourself, Dad,” Victoria said.
“Well, I am.” I explained what had happened and why.
“Does this extend to his or her Entity - this desire to destroy you?”
“Not so much the Entity. They know it’s impossible to destroy another Being. But they have intents and interests that can be directed to the personality so I can safely assume there is no love lost between this Entity and mine. I don’t know why, but I’m the recipient.”
Abe said, “This life of yours has sure turned into a real can of worms lately. Here I thought we were going to live our lives out happily in our quaint community.” He grinned in that infectious way of his. “Now we have mischief makers operating in and out of their bodies. Don’t you yearn for the good old days?” He laughed. “But seriously, Dad, we have to make this work. What can we do?”
I grinned. “I know what you mean, Abe. Life would have been easier in some ways. But if you see or feel anything, especially with any of The Thera, please let me know. Like unusual interest in life-forms here. In this case a spider. The person I’m interested in is a secret eugenicist with an almost overpowering need to change genetics. They get that from their Entity. It’s as powerful as any drug addiction.”
“How many Thera are they among the aliens?” Helen asked.
“Thirty-five, including me. Your mother has the abilities but is separate. Her Entity is vastly old. But elected to keep creating personalities so to interact with physical reality.”
“Knew there was something about her.” Abe dodged a punch from Victoria.
I laughed. “There is, isn’t there?” Evening was drawing to a close. “Let’s check on your mother, brother, and Greg.”
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