by JJ Aughe
Stepping back she saw the love in his eyes and intuitively knew what he was about to say. “Melissa. I feel that Kerry, you and Sean, Jessie and Bailey, Carol and Dennis, Monica and Peter, and even old Eddie too, are family and there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do or go through for any of you. Just seeing the love bond between the ten of you is enough repayment for anything I might have done or ever will do. Just know that I carry a deep, all encompassing love for all of you.”
“I would like to stand here talking with you more, but I am needed up at the dig. When your plane arrived Carl, one of the students had just begun carefully digging out what we think is a type of clamshell that could only have come from the Gulf of Mexico. So I’m going to say so long for now.” With those words, Professor Logan knelt beside Kerry, patted the dog’s head, rose, turned and trotted back up the beach.
Kerry watched him until he disappeared from sight, turned sad eyes to Melissa and pitifully whined.
Melissa knelt beside him, patted his head and pointed up the beach. “I’m not going anywhere without, you, Kerry. So go with Logan if you want to.”
Kerry wagged his tail, licked Melissa’s face, yipped twice with what had to be joy and was off like a shot. Laughing, Melissa shook her head. “I think Kerry has found a new friend.”
“It sure looks like it, Sis. By the way he looked at you I would say he was torn as to what to do. I would bet that he will be wearing a deep trail back and forth between the cavern and wherever you are though.”
A few minutes later Jessie and Melissa sat next to each other on the log where Bailey had taken Jessie just over two months before. They chit chatted for a while about meaningful, but trivial things. Anxious to tell what had been happening in her life, Jessie stood, gazed down at her friend and began to bare her soul.
She paced back and forth in front of Melissa as she related how, since childhood, she had been having almost nightly dreams of the Native American maiden. How, since she had met Bailey, those dreams had become so much more intense. Then she related how the maiden’s language, though Jessie had never heard it before, always seemed familiar, as if she should already understand every word.
She referred to the Bugle Creek affair, her marriage to Bailey the day after and their decision to spend their honeymoon at the lake instead of going somewhere romantic. When they arrived they immediately went to the cavern only to make the devastating discovery that the entrance had been collapsed. Bailey had made a thorough search of the area and found evidence indicating the terrorists had found the cavern and set explosives to destroy it.
In hopes of salvaging at least some of the cavern’s artifacts Bailey had called one of the four archeologists they had decided would co-head the dig with Professor Logan. They had all agreed the site needed to be examined and Bailey made several trips with his rental float plane to transport Logan, the four archeologists and their dig crew, composed of four archeology students from the University of Washington and two female experts on Native American artifacts of the Northwest to the lake.
Devastated that the cavern seemed destroyed, after the dig crew arrived Jessie brought her new husband to that very log and relayed the same information she was about to reveal to her friend. Bailey had been supportive, but had wanted her to write all of the information in the journal she had been keeping of the history of the discovery and excavation of the cavern. He had requested she do that so he could read it in black and white and be able to better understand. That had been fine with Jessie and she did as he asked.
A few days later the entrance to the cavern crawl-through had been painstakingly cleared, the cavern carefully checked for safety and the team of experts and workers had been flown back to Seattle. She and Bailey had entered the cavern. Almost immediately upon entering the first chamber, a very strange feeling came over Jessie. A feeling she could only guess as to its cause, but one she knew, as with her sudden love for Bailey, in her heart she wanted to explore.
Until that moment Bailey hadn’t said a word. Then he set his flashlight on a stool left by one of the workers and turned to face her. The light was shinning directly on his face as he opened his mouth to speak. When he spoke though, the voice she heard was not Bailey’s but gravelly like that of a very elderly man and his eyes had changed to brown instead of sky blue.
Jessie settled on the log next to Melissa before quoting what Bailey said. “Daughter of the People. You have come home to your people. Now we, the people of your lineage, rejoice.”
She had asked Bailey what he had meant. But, as if he didn’t know what she was talking about, he just gave her a blank stare. And his eyes were blue again! Then he said and did something that she would always remember as his way of showing her how deep his love for her really went.
With a solemn expression Jessie asked, “Do you remember when Bailey came back to the cabin and told us we had to immediately leave?” At Melissa’s nod, Jessie continued. “He had carefully kept his left side turned away from me but I saw spots of what appeared to be blood on the right sleeve of his jacket and grease on both of his hands that day. I asked if he had been hurt but he just shrugged and told me what to do and went upstairs. But he had been hurt Melissa. The terrorist had been able to get his knife out and had tried to stab Bailey. Bailey had been fast and was almost able to avoid the knife blade. I said almost. Bailey had been cut, a deep, jagged wound on his upper left arm. He had tended to it himself before coming back to the cabin to fix the truck.”
Jessie tentatively put a hand to Melissa’s cheek as she continued. “I know as well as I am here right now that what Bailey did next was really hard for him. Out of love for me and respect for the Maiden he did it anyway. As he stood looking at me in the cavern that day he told me he had been to the cavern earlier in the day. He said his intention had been to just make sure the cavern would be safe to take me there. He checked for anything that might be dangerous, didn’t find anything and started to leave. Suddenly he had the weirdest feeling that he wasn’t alone, that someone else was there with him.
Jessie made a temple with her fingers in front of her mouth as she tried to gather her thoughts. “Before I go on, I want to clear one thing up. I told you about the man in my dreams and the scar on his left arm. Outside of telling Monica on the morning of my birthday, you are the only other person I have ever told about that scar. For some odd reason I always omitted that little tidbit of information when talking to Bailey about my dreams.”
That omission made clear, Jessie continued, “What I am leading up to, Melissa is this. On that morning, in the first chamber of the cavern he cautiously turned his flashlight toward, what we had earlier dubbed ‘The Ancient Wall of History.’ Standing in front of the wall was the maiden from my dreams. He told me he didn’t believe what he was seeing. That what he saw had to be a figment of his imagination, something he only wanted to see so he could really believe the things I had told him. But, then the maiden spoke to him in her own language and he understood every word!
The maiden called him by name, told him to carefully listen and to heed her words. Then she told him that his name was a fitting one for in her tongue the word for his name was ‘Eshan’, and meant keeper of the hearth.’ She told him that henceforth for all eternity ‘Eshan’ would be his name.”
“She also told him, no, ordered him, to prove his loyalty, love and faith for me, the woman who was his soul mate, and she had said Soul Mate, Melissa, not wife, by revealing to me the one thing that he had kept secret.”
“Melissa, I had wondered why, even when the weather was hot here in the Puget Sound, Bailey insisted on wearing long sleeved shirts. Before that day, I had also wondered why, since we have been married he always turned the lights off before he undressed to go to bed. It kind of troubled me, you know. But, though I love his wonderful body and desired to see and experience every inch of it, loving Bailey as much as I do, I could never bring myself to ask him why. Well, I found out the reason that day.
Bailey stood before
me, unbuttoned and removed his shirt and I almost fainted! There, on the upper part of his left bicep was a scar that formed the shape of a downward striking, four pointed bolt of lightning. Before I could say anything he took my hand, put it over the scar, closed his eyes and uttered words I didn’t immediately understand. I recognized the words were the language of the maiden though, and just as he had, I suddenly, inexplicably, understood them too!”
Jessie stopped pacing and stood gazing across the lake at the mountain ridge where the cavern was located and said nothing more. Melissa rose from the log. In a shaky voice she urged, “Sis. Finish it, please! I know you were about to tell me something else. Something that is very important. I think I already know what it is, but I want you to say it.” Her voice holding a plaintive note, she pleaded, “I need your confirmation, Sis. It’s the only thing that will keep me from thinking I have gone crazy.”
Without saying a word, Jessie turned, looked her friend in the eye for a few beats, then nodded and went on with the story. “The words Bailey spoke in the maiden’s language were this; ‘Listen and heed my words, Daughter of my Line.’ Then, as Bailey and I stood there in that chamber, we heard a mournful sob come from somewhere behind us. When we looked that way we both saw the maiden standing there, tears coursing down her cheeks.”
A tear slipping slowly down her own cheek Jessie gazed lovingly at her friend. “Melissa. What we saw was not a ghost or a figment of our imagination. She was a real, flesh and blood person! Her arms were out toward us and in one hand she held an exact replica of the pouch I wear around my neck. The one that arrived at my home the first day I came here with Bailey. What the maiden said next had me falling to my knees and sobbing right along with her.”
Pausing only long enough to place a hand on Melissa’s shoulder she said, “I know you are going to want to make comments when I tell you what she said. But, please don’t say anything, Sis, until I have told you everything she had to say. Okay?”
Melissa nodded and Jessie hurried on. “The maiden told us she is Agana, Warrior Princess of her people, The People On-Ah-Asa, and that her name, which means Fair Leader, had been added to, detracted from and switched around over time by the various peoples her People have, out of necessity and survival, joined with since her time. Sis, I want you to know that what she told us next shocked me to my very soul.
She said that she had sadly been forced to watch as the number of her people dwindled and because the peoples they joined with wouldn’t allow her descendants to use a name meaning leader, the meaning of her name was changed from ‘Fair Leader’ to many different meanings until she had to do something she knew was completely against all the rules of her realm. She had to intervene.”
“Now, Melissa,” Jessie cautioned. “As she told us we had to do, you will have to understand that Princess Agana was, and is, still in the realm of her ancestors, the realm of the original Agana, Warrior Princess of The People On-Ah-Asa. The Princess who we were listening to beseeched the original Agana to allow her to do what was necessary to help her descendents continue and to multiply and again become a strong but peaceful people. Gaining a conditional permission, the conditions of which were never revealed to Bailey or I, Princess Agana visited the only remaining maiden of her lineage who could bring about what was needed. The maiden, a direct descendent of her own line of lineage, was what we call today a Native American and in the mid to late 1800’s lived with her adopted family in a village or city to the East of what she referred to as the big muddy river. I assume that was either the Missouri or Mississippi river. That information is vague at best but is of no real importance. What is important is the maiden’s first and last names. Those names are what shocked me so badly.”
Jessie became emotional and had to pause in her recitation. Before she could continue, Melissa put her palms on Jessie’s cheeks, pulled her face to within inches of her own, shook her head to clear the vision of the past she had just been seeing in her own mind and stated matter-of-factly, “I know why you were shocked, Jessie.”
When Jessie just stared at Melissa that woman continued. “She told you the maiden’s name was Na Co Ma, which means ‘Evening Star’, of the Navajo people in Arizona. She was adopted by a wealthy Jewish couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Jacob and Naomi Lindle, who added their last name, Lindle, to the maiden’s name, Na-Co-Ma.”
Jessie gasped. “How did you know?” Then understanding dawned. This woman, who she had come to love as a sister, was, somehow, really related to her and had also been visited by Princess Agana!
“Oh Jessie, that is not all I know. I know that Na-Co-Ma’s mother’s Navajo name was Ma-Sa-Na Na-Ga-Ah. And I know that the name Na-Ga-Ah is really just a variation of the name Agana, the Maiden you just spoke of. I also know, dear sister, that your mother was the great-great-granddaughter of Na-Co-Ma. That fact makes you, being the daughter and only offspring of the union between your mother and your father, you Jessie, are now the leader of the On-Ah-Asa People.”
“Again, Melissa, I ask you, and yet I believe I already know what the answer is before you tell me, how could you know any of this?”
The corners of Melissa’s lips turned up in a smile that was both joyful and sad. “Princess Agana appeared to me a little after midnight the morning we left Belize in what I thought had been a dream, but in reality had been an actual visitation by an ancestor. Yes. Princess Agana had actually stood before me right there in that room. She told me who she was, then told me she had watched with pride as you, Carol, Monica and I defended, and were willing to die for not only each other but for the freedom of our country and those we love. I could tell by the sheen I saw in her eyes that she was about to weep. But, instead, she shook her head as if to shake away the weakness. Then she told me a bit of the history of her people and her own line of heritage. Though she would not tell me her complete lineage, she did recite it back four generations to a time when her people lived in a distant land. Then she revealed to me that she had spoke to you and that she had revealed to you all of her lineage that day in the cavern with Bailey, from the beginning of her line to her own time and even to present day. Princess Agana told only you, Jessie, because you are the very last of Agana’s line of maidens who could become leaders of The People On-Ah-Asa. In other words, Jessie, because you acted in a positive, decisive and selfless manner when those you loved were in danger, you are now the present day Agana, Warrior Princess of the People On-Ah-Asa!”
Melissa stepped back and gave Jessie another smile, this one being one of respect and admiration before she solemnly continued. “She also cautioned you that your complete lineage must be kept secret from everyone except your first born daughter who will then pass it on to her first born son’s daughter and she, on the passing of her father, will then become the next female leader of your people. That maiden will become the next Agana, Warrior Princess of the People On-Ah-Asa. So, yes, Jessie, I am also a descendant of the People On-Ah-Asa.
Now I will tell you something else that will set you back on your heels.”
Letting her voice soften, Melissa fondly smiled and said, “Princess Agana also revealed to me that after that day in the cavern with Bailey she had been forbidden to speak directly to you again until you realized and accepted your place as leader of The People On-Ah-Asa. That is why she hasn’t spoken to you lately even in your dreams. Now, since she couldn’t speak directly to you she needed a member or members of The People to use as a go-between. What she had to do then was to travel through time.
This is what she told me. Besides the two of us, for a long time now, in vague dreams there have been three other descendants she has also visited, a man and two women.
Brace yourself, Jessie. What I am going to say will really surprise you. Years ago, she began to visit the dreams of those three children, two young girls and an orphan boy. The first girl she visited in dreams was your friend Monica Radcliff. Carol Winfrey is the other one, but the young orphan boy, Sis? Princess Agana instructed me to reveal this information
to you only if I thought you would be receptive of it. I know you are, so here it is. The orphan boy’s great grandfather on his mother’s side married Nacomis White Deer, a maiden of the Sioux Nation. Nacomis’ lineage was not only that of the Sioux, it was also of the ancient People On-Ah-Asa. You are going to be surprised and, I really believe, happy about what Princess Agana instructed me to reveal to you next.”
“The orphan boy she so long ago began to visit in dreams, Sis?” Melissa continued, “He is no other than Bailey Gilmore, the man you are so in love with. The man you have married and whose baby you are now carrying! Princess Agana also told me that Bailey’s ancestry goes back to her own dearest friend, a woman named Tas-Na-Lae and therefore he has the lineage to further the line of succession to leadership of the People On-Ah-Asa.”
Jessie’s jaw dropped in awe when Melissa revealed that Bailey was also a descendant of the On-Ah-Asa People. This is a development she had not expected, but was something that certainly delighted her. If it were true, and she had no doubt that it was, it meant that Bailey and her were a new beginning for the leaders of The People On-Ah-Asa, a beginning that included her friends Melissa, Carol and Monica as her responsibility. For those three women, along with their spouses, Sean and Dennis O’Donald and Peter Klieg, who only last week had married Monica, now completed the known make-up of her people, The People On-Ah-Asa.
Epilogue
Three weeks later:
After tediously removing dirt, gravel and large boulders from an apparent man-made wall at the end of passage two in the cavern, Professor Logan sent Andrew Boyd, one of the co-head archeologists of the dig, down the mountain to summon his employers. What he had found would astonish even Jessie.