by Michael Priv
“No, I don’t.” I shrugged. “But I suppose it’s a university in Santa Cruz, right?”
“Yes, it’s a big school of languages in Santa Cruz, world-known. We might get lucky on that poem.”
“Okay, so that’s where we’re going, then.” Santa Cruz was in the opposite direction, back toward the Bay Area, but I liked making loops and doubling up anyway—made me feel safer.
In Santa Cruz, we stopped at Kinkos first and printed out the photo and the short poem. All the letters in the poem looked normal, although there seemed to be too many vowels and hyphens, and some letters had bars across them. Put together they made absolutely no sense. Could be a code, God help us.
29 “A Native American language,” we were informed by Jennifer, a bespectacled, plump, and pleasant intern at the faculty. Linda and I exchanged bewildered looks. “Possibly Navajo or Apache,” she added. “I can’t read or understand it, but I recognize the bars across the Uand Lover here, look,” she pointed. We looked. There were indeed a lot of bars across letters.
Jennifer referred us to Professor Baker, their top authority on Native American languages. A barrel-chested shaggy-blond guy in a plaid lumberjack shirt, jeans, and huge work boots, about ten years my senior, astonishingly, was the professor. When we entered, he was poking around an old, dented filing cabinet.
“Professor,” I started. “Sir…” “Please, call me Shane,” he interrupted, turning to us. “I’m not into all the rank-induced vicissitudes. I was born Shane, so I’m Shane. Can I help you?”
He looked me straight in the eye. I liked that. “Okay, Shane, no vicissitudes from us, then,” I agreed immediately. “Hey, listen, are you a Native American?”
“Me? Oh, no! I’m a mongrel, you know, a little Scottish, a little Irish, a tad of German, a dash of Danish—the usual. And you?” “ No, not me. I’m an extraterrestrial.” He laughed. I laughed. Linda punched me in the shoulder and made big eyes. “Professor, we need your help.”
Baker walked to his desk and took his seat, big, hard-working hands on the table. I bet his professorship (or professitude?) was not how he paid most of his bills. He was all attention now. Good guy.
“ We have this writing.” I gave him the printout. “Probably a poem. Would you mind taking a look, please? Jennifer at Information thought it was a Native American language, possibly Navajo or Apache. Some ancient folklore or something?”
“Folklore? Sure. Let’s see.” Shane studied the poem and snorted his appreciation softly. “Beautiful. Where did you get this?” “A client brought it to my office, asking what it was. Not sure where she got it,” Linda interjected hastily. “What does it say?” “This is a folk poem in one of the Dene family languages, also known as Athabaskan. It may be ancient, but it was written in this form after 1997 when their phonetic alphabet was finalized. You got that?” He looked at us weightily. “It may or may not be ancient by content, but this rendition is modern.”
I puffed my cheeks and nodded just in case, although I didn’t get the importance of that observation. Linda glanced at me with a raised eyebrow, also nodding significantly.
“ I don’t get every word, but what I understand is beautiful. Something about a mountain, which is the sleeping God who sometimes wakes up, yawns mightily and stretches from sleep, reaching up to the stars. Something of that nature. It’s definitely not Navajo or Apache, although they all belong to the same Athabaskan languages family.”
“Where is that mountain exactly?” Linda asked. “ The mountain where God reaches for the sky?” Baker stared at her. “There is no such mountain. This is folklore,” he explained carefully as if talking to a child. “Their poems don’t necessarily depict real locations or events, you know, just like ours.”
“Sure.” Linda nodded with a smile. “What I meant was, where is Tabaskan spoken? Possibly they could tell us more about this poem.” “Athabaskan? Oh, a huge territory .” Shane spread his arms to show how huge. “You’d be traveling for a very long time. Alaska, Yukon, North-West Canada, Washington State, Oregon, Northern California, Colorado, Utah, Navajos in Arizona, Apache in Oklahoma. It’s even spoken by some native Mexican tribes.”
“All the same language?” Linda’s face fell in disappointment. Shane shook his head. “No, different languages but the same family of languages. They all have common roots and share similarities, kind of like English and Spanish. Some languages are a lot closer to each other than others. But it’s all one family, same basic roots. There are subgroups, too, of course.”
“Of course,” I quickly agreed. “But, Shane, you recognized that this isn’t Navajo, for example, so could you narrow it down some more for us?”
“This language belongs to the North -Pacific subgroup. That hones it down quite a bit. I’ll tell you what, I’ll run it as a research project for my students after the New Year. This would make a fine study assignment.”
“No, that takes too long.” I shrugged. “We’re on vacation. Every hour counts. Could you look into it right now for us?” Shane gave me a long stare. I held his gaze.
“Well, I suppose so.” He nodded. “ I only have about an hour before the next lecture, but let me see what I can do with my NorthPacific database.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Linda replied. Shane got behind his computer and started looking through his files, muttering and occasionally jabbing his finger into the printout of the poem.
“Tolowa,” he finally announced cheerily with a ring of pride in his voice. “Sometimes referred to as Chetco.”
“Great! What’s Tolowa?” I asked, hoping it was as good of news as Shane’s facial expression indicated.
“A language. And also a tribe.”
“Where can we find these Tolowa people? Are they spread out all over?” asked Linda.
“No, Tolowa is a small tribe located at Siletz Indian reservation in Oregon.”
“That’s it? One reservation? Such a small area?” “Exactly! Confined and concentrated. Of course, it isn’t all that small a reservation, about six thousand square miles, shared by several tribes. One of them is Tolowa.”
“Where is that Siletz Reservation located?” Linda inquired. “ In Siletz, naturally, Oregon. Route 229. Hey.” Shane suddenly turned to me. “I would still like to use this as a research assignment. Would you mind?”
“Not at all, professor, keep the printout. Thank you very much for all your help.”
“There you go.” Linda grinned at me in the car. “The hill wakes up, yawns and reaches for the stars.” “ Tolowa people of God, we come in peace!”
“On and forward!”
Easing out of the parking lot, Linda chirping excitedly, I felt downright happy about the whole thing and life in general.
30 The route straight up north from Santa Cruz took us through the Bay Area again, from I-880 to I-680 to I-80 and finally toward Sacramento and onto I-505 with its seventy-mile-an-hour speed limit. Low clouds over the Central Valley and the smell of rain in the air failed to dampen our jubilations and we did, indeed, have something to be jubilant about. For starters, we were still alive—a wonderful thing and in itself the cause for a major celebration. Secondly, we knew now where the Guards kept their transport. Thousands of years of search had culminated here and now with yours truly. Not a small thing indeed. I—I found it! The one and only. With Linda. Actually, she found it. Linda! The one and only. Mygirl! And our relationship was now more or less on the same page. Boy, that felt awesome. Yes, deep inside she always knew.
“But I cannot forget, refused to regre-et…”Linda crooned along with Maroon 5 in tune with the radio, holding my hand, all dangers temporarily forgotten.
“Soglad I met you,takes my breath awa-a-ay…”I joined in the karaoke, happy to accommodate her good cheer. The fast approaching large SUV in my rearview mirror spelled trouble. So were the breaking lights of an identical SUV right in front of us, boxing us in. My jubilant mood instantaneously evaporated.
“Linda, hang on to something,” I yelled, swerving to avoid the
collision with the Tahoe in front of me. “What?” Linda yelled, startled. “What now?”
“The Feds. Brace for collision!”
I kept swerving to avoid the Tahoe zigzagging in front of me. Tires whined and shrieked. Several other cars collided, creating a picturesque scene. A car flew off the road into the ditch. Something caught on fire as evidenced by the plume of smoke behind me.
“How do you know they’re Feds?” Linda’s face was contorted in terror. She was looking around for a place to drive off the freeway. Fields stretched as far as the eyes could see on both sides of us. No way could we outrun a Tahoe in a Honda Accord through a dirt field.
“Who else? Government license plates. Not to mention the antennas and them obviously out to get us.” Maneuvering all over the road and nearly avoiding other cars, I managed to pass the Tahoe in front, so they were both behind me. Staying in tight formation, we were doing over a hundred. This couldn’t last long. Shots rang from behind. My side mirror blew off. Both the back window and windshield suddenly developed bullet holes. The bastards were shooting at us, trying to take us out, no doubt about that. They were not trying to stop us; they were shooting to kill. Complying with their orders as usual—humans, the most misguided bunch of idiots I have ever seen.
“Linda, grab my gun and shoot back at them. Aim for the windshield.” “No, Norman, I told you already, I’m not a killer.”
“Sure you are! Just try, you’ll like it, you’ll see.”
“Fuck off, Norman!” Linda snapped.
“Okay, okay! Then grab the wheel.” Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. I slid into the back while Linda held the wheel and eased herself into the driver’s seat, cussing. My earnest attempt to shoot the driver fell short of my expectation. Two pale smudges on the Tahoe’s windshield behind us served as a testimony to my superb shooting skills, but the bullets didn’t penetrate. Bulletproof glass—definitely the Feds.
I attempted to shoot at the tires, but the SUVs started zigzagging. After a couple of attempts, I decided to save the ammunition and climbed back to the front.
“What happened?” Linda yelled. “ You missed?”
“No. They’re bulletproof. Let me drive.” I reached for the wheel.
“Hang on to something, Picky!” Linda suddenly yelled. “We’re getting off the road!” Then I saw it. A break in the fields, an opening, a street running parallel to I-505 and careening off it perpendicularly, at a distance, into some town. We were about to pass a stack of construction lumber and cinder blocks prepared for some repairs next to the road in the gutter, creating a sort of a disjointed ramp—our way out of here. Linda had to make the jump. There was no time to fasten the seat belt. I bent forward under the dashboard, keeping my hands close to my body.
The Accord left the road as the embankment dropped from under us. We were airborne for a long second. Cars are not made to fly. For one thing, the front is too heavy. Also, the speed of the car is always insufficient to keep that hunk of steel up in the air for very long. Cowering under the dashboard, I felt the car’s front tip down and expected a crash when we bounced off the stack of plywood and construction lumber at high-speed. The newly-found altitude and momentum carried us all the way to the side road. We hit the road hard, damaging the car’s front. The front shocks were gone, and wafts of steam from the broken radiator enveloped the car. Linda with a scowl of utter terror on her face kept flooring the Accord down the street into town. The thugs didn’t follow, which made sense, as they couldn’t have possibly made that jump in their heavy SUVs.
With the heating on to help cool off the engine, I switched the fan to the maximum. Hot air blew hard inside the car. Fortunately, the windows blown off by gunfire offered plenty of cooling and ventilation. Linda ran a traffic light, tearing through the sleepy town. We found ourselves in what must have served as downtown in these parts.
“Turn here,” I told Linda. “This parking lot.” We parked the smoking Accord and walked away with our money and a bag with all the clothing that we’d bought. Linda started hyperventilating.
“Adrenaline,” I explained. “Breathe evenly and slowly. Try to calm down.”
“But why… why wouldn’t they… leave us alone?” Linda’s breath was rapid and shallow.
“Let’s sit down here, honey.” I helped her onto a bench at a bus stop and held her close to calm her. “Can you walk?” I asked. “I’ m all right,” Linda answered, still panting. “Can we stay here in this town for a while? Maybe they won’t find us here.” Linda was almost begging, huge dark eyes full of fear.
“One thing we can’t do is stay here, hon, I’m sorry,” I replied . And I was sorry for several reasons at once, including having to appropriate another car, an older model Buick in this case, with plenty of power and three quarters full on gas.
We left that town without ever having a chance to learn its name.
31 Back on I-505, we were doing at least a hundred, weaving in and out of traffic, spurred along by my sincere hope that they wouldn’t expect us back on the same road moving in the same direction so soon. Although with the satellite capability and the recognition software… Linda kept insisting that we’d run into the Tahoes again. She was right as always. Right behind us, one of the large SUVs slid from the rear of a red eighteen-wheeler sporting a large SWIT logo. The Tahoe leveled with me effortlessly. Even the powerful Buick was no match for the Feds’ vehicles. A bullet lodged itself in the headrest of my seat. A large Chevy pulled up next to us. The shooter was getting ready for another round through the passenger’s open window. Linda screamed.
I hit the brakes to spoil their aim, almost getting rear-ended by an eighteen-wheeler with large logo SWIT on it right behind me. I stepped on the gas again. My Buick labored under the new assignment, accelerating heavily. The Tahoe lined up with us again, another shot, then a few more. Linda let out a bone-chilling shriek. My heart clutched in my throat. The hair on the back of my head stood up in anticipation of a hot bullet drilling through my skull. Now our back passenger window had bullet holes in it as well.
“Picky, look out!” Linda screamed.
“Stay down!” I yelled back. Things looked downright shitty.
Linda kept screaming something I couldn’t quite understand. The Tahoe lined up with me again, presenting a great view of the asshole in the passenger’s seat, the one responsible for all the bullet holes in our windows. Well-groomed, suit, tie, sunglasses. What do
you wa nt from me, slick? I shot him twice through my window, nailing him in the shoulder. The Tahoe driver hit the brakes to disengage. Revving up, I nearly collided with the second Tahoe, which swerved to box us in. Here wegoagain
This time they brought in a helicopter. It was keeping up with us a couple hundred feet in the air. The Tahoe in front of me almost flew off the road trying to knock me out, overcompensated getting back on the road, and then careened to the right in front of me, knocking some small car into the ditch. Damn, the body count was outrageous. Sorry, people!
With a ping of apprehension, I noticed that the SWIT truck was staying even with us. What did he want? I accelerated, speeding forward in the left lane and clipped the Tahoe’s bumper, just as it careened past me to the right doing at least ninety. The Tahoe spun out of control and was immediately broadsided by the SWIT truck, which kept on accelerating in the right lane despite the collision. With the mangled remains of the Chevy Tahoe thrown off the road by impact, the truck fell slightly to the right behind me. He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. What the hell?
The second Tahoe was accelerating to ram us from behind when the SWIT truck suddenly swerved into the Tahoe, knocking it into the ditch to the left of the roadway. Down the embankment the Tahoe went, then up the embankment on the other side and into the incoming traffic, where it was pummeled head on by another truck, the exact replica of the one that was helping us, large white letters SWIT prominently visible on the cab and trailer. What the hell was SWIT?
Suddenly, we
ran out of pursuers. Except forthe helicopter, I reminded myself. Too late. The bullet holes suddenly started materializing in the Buick’s hood, leading directly to me, I yanked the wheel, too late. The next instant I was hit. It felt like getting whacked on the chest with something big and heavy.
Things went foggy and silent for a second —complements of the shock. Then I realized Linda was holding the wheel and screaming, “Norman!” at the top of her lungs. She looked terrified, but as I’d come to expect of her, she did what she had to do.
It took both of us working together to stop the car on the shoulder. Warm blood ran down my chest and belly. Terrible pain was gradually welling in my chest. It was getting harder and harder to see and breathe. I was dying—I knew that, this wasn’t my first dance. Damn shame.
“Look!” Linda exclaimed wide-eyed, pointing ahead. I peered through the rapidly gathering grayness at the SWIT truck that screeched to a halt in front of us. The driver, a very big blond kid, jumped down, raising in one hand what looked very much like an M2 50-caliber machine gun. The heavy gun came to life, spraying spent casings on the asphalt. The helicopter above us took a dive to its right, came out of the dip smoking above the incoming traffic lanes, and exploded in the air, debris falling on the freeway below. The shooter tossed the weapon onto the driver’s seat of his truck and walked calmly toward us. His forearms were as thick as my thighs. Or thicker. They would have to be, to accurately shoot an eightysome-pound weapon one-handed. The Guards.
“Linda…” I mumbled in a futile attempt to warn her and then passed out. Linda’s large dark, pleading eyes full of concern were the last thing I saw before submerging into oblivion.
32
“Norman!” Alarms rang in my mind. Norman? I pushed the sound away, flexing my mental muscle in a meek attempt to get a grip. The oblivion was calling. I resisted, relishing the sense of returning cognizance. “Norman!” Here was that sound again. Nor-man. Oh, that means me! I’m Norman.
“What?” I mumbled, struggling to see through bloodshot eyes. “Dad?”