V 14 - The Oregon Invasion

by Jayne Tannehill (UC) (epub)

  “It must hurt you to keep them in all the time.” “It is not comfortable. But I have gotten used to it.” “Your eyes change color.”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes them change?”

  “The way I feel. The thoughts I have.”

  “Then, if I learned the colors, I would know what you were thinking.”

  “Perhaps. Yours change, too, but not the color.” “And do you know what I am thinking?” “Sometimes.”

  The intensity of her look changed, and Hadad felt the pull toward her again.

  “That thought I know.”

  “Do you?”

  He leaned forward and kissed her.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled and lay back again in the water. Gradually she floated almost to the surface and the smooth arch of her body lay suspended without tension.

  Hadad closed his eyes against the daylight. His lids were sore from the lenses, sore from fatigue, sore from the smoke of the day before, from the sand in the lake water, sore from squinting against the now brighter daylight that his own eyes were unaccustomed to.

  He was tired, and the concerns of the day were not behind him.

  “Ruth.” He spoke her name, but she did not respond.

  He opened his eyes and reached out to tap her arm as it floated in front of him.

  “Hmmm?” She raised her head, and her body came upright in the water.

  “If we are to stay here, we must do things to make it possible.”

  “It’s so relaxing here in the water.”

  “It is too relaxing. I will fall asleep soon, and you will go hungry.”

  “That would never do.”

  “I do not know how to find the grasses you eat.”

  “I will eat as you do.”

  Hadad shook his head and smiled.

  “I cannot imagine that. I will find you meat. But I do not expect you to eat as I eat.”

  “Well . . . maybe not exactly as you eat.” Ruth smiled. “All right, taskmaster. To work. To work.” She got out of the water and shook her hair free of the water, spraying Hadad and the pile of clothes beside the tub. With her hands she brushed the lingering water from her body, and then she dressed, pulling the leather clothes tight to her body to hold in the warmth it retained from .the water.

  Hadad dressed quickly, guarding the lenses he still held in his hand.

  They walked back to the cabin. The air inside was cool and the rooms were musty. The car was parked in front of the cabin toward the road. Hadad would need a way to carry back animals for Ruth. He went to the car and looked among the items thrown into the backseat.

  “We might as well bring it all in.” Ruth was right behind him. “What you aren’t looking for, I’ll use somehow.”

  They gathered up the loose bundles and carried them into the house.

  There was a little container that held grommets among the tools. Hadad dumped the metal findings on the counter and put the lenses from his left hand into the small metal box. He left the box there on the counter as well and went back to the car to help Ruth with the rest.

  The piles of familiar items made the room more welcoming. Hadad watched Ruth as she looked around, this time seeing not the sparseness of the barren walls, but the possibilities they held. He smiled. He had seen the look before, when they had cleared the ground for the tent. Then he had not known the thoughts, the images that lay behind the quick darting calculations of the eyes. Now he understood, and welcomed the understanding.

  He took the satchel, dumped its contents on the floor, and left to find food.

  Crickets and beetles whetted his appetite. He caught two squirrels, ate one, and hit the other one against a rock so that he could bring it back to Ruth. A bird eluded him. A lizard did not. The sweet meat was a welcome treat. He found three brown mice, ate one, twisted the necks of the other two, and put them into the bag.

  He found a hill of black ants, dug them out, and ate them by the handfuls. He thought of taking some back for Ruth, but could not figure out a way to contain them. It would not do to have them crawling in the fur of the squirrel, for that he would cut away.

  He had headed back when he almost stepped on the snake that lay on the path soaking up the last rays of the afternoon sun. He caught it, bit off the head, and coiled the length of its body so it would fit into the bag.

  He gathered trillium, blackberry, mountain balm, and rosemary to freshen the air in the cabin, and miner’s lettuce for the flowers on top to brighten the room. The purple flower on the wild chives caught his attention, and so he grabbed a handful of the flowers and leaves.

  She had dug a pit and started a fire in it behind the cabin. Chips of wood glowed brightly and branches laid above them blazed as the needles and leaves still attached dried and burned off. A large flat stone lay in the middle of the glowing coals.

  The hatchet and a knife lay beside the fire.

  He laid the herbs to the side and took the squirrel from the bag. With the hatchet he removed the head and cut the skin away from the muscles of the body.

  Ruth came out with a can she had found and filled with water. She placed it on one side of the flat rock. She watched as he tore at the flesh.

  “Here, let me do that.”

  Practiced hands took the knife and cut away the skin, cut the abdomen and pulled away the intestines, threw them into the forest.

  “You are throwing away the best part.”

  She smiled up at him, then cut the animal into quarters and lay the pink meat on the rock beside the can of water.

  She looked into the bag and found the mice and snake. He waited for her reaction and was surprised that she did not wince or hesitate. As deftly, she slit the skin of the snake and, taking hold of the loose skin, turned it inside out, leaving the naked meat in one long strip. She cut it into pieces and took a stick which she had obviously prepared while he was gone and speared them.

  The mice she looked at, turned over in her hands, and looked at again. At last she took the knife, cut each head off, threw the heads out into the forest, and peeled the far away from the pink flesh beneath. She worked tediously over each little piece. Hadad decided that in the future he would eat the mice himself, bring back the larger animals. When she had trimmed the mice to her satisfaction, she speared them on the stick as well and rested the stick over the fire; the two tails dangled above the flames and in time caught fire and burned away.

  With another stick she scraped the squirrel off the rock and turned it over.

  Hadad reached for the herbs to take them to the house.

  “Where are you going with those?”

  “They are for the cabin.”

  “They are for my dinner. Give them back.”

  She took some of the chive and rosemary, cut them into fine slivers, and sprinkled them over the cooking squirrel meat, put aside the rest, cut the mountain balm, trillium, and blackberry leaves and tossed them into the water, cut the flowers away from the miner’s lettuce and tore the leaves from the stem that thrust up through the middle of each and put them in a pile. The purple flowers of the chives she handed back to him.

  “You may have the rest,” she said, looking up at him.

  He looked at the few remaining leaves, the small bunch of flowers in his hand. They would have to do. He went into the cabin.

  The curtains no longer hung from the windows. Boughs from the trees outside were stripped of their long needles and one curtain held them against the board frame of the bed. The other curtain covered it as a blanket. Torn bits of clothing hung as towels in the bathroom, and leather garments lay folded neatly for future use. The wood smelled wet where she had scrubbed, and fresh where she had laid pine boughs along the edges of the room. He rubbed the herbs in his hands and sprinkled them over the branches. He placed the purple flowers on the wooden table that sat against the wall. They did not match the neatness of the room. And so he took the eight blossoms and arranged them in a circle, the stems pointing toward the center, the bl
ossoms toward the room. That was better but not right. He picked up one of the blossoms, closed the circle of seven, and tried to find a way to make the flower stand alone in the center. It would not. And to his eye the center of stems demanded the color from the flowers themselves. And so, one by one, he took the tiny petals and plucked them from the stem and placed them in a tiny circle inside the cluster of green.

  He went back outside and watched her eating the cooked meats wrapped in leaves of lettuce. He sat beside her and stared into the fire.

  The herbs bubbling in the water became pungent, the smoke from the fire sharp and biting.

  She finished eating, then, holding the hot can with pliers that before had only worked needles through leather, poured a bit of the boiling herbed water over the rocks and knife she had used, and then put the can on the rock beside her.

  Hadad watched her without comment. Carefully she sipped at the tea she had brewed.

  The sky faded to gray and then to black. Stars appeared as his eyes adjusted to the lessening light. Crickets chorused and frogs added a syncopation of their own.

  All day they had lived in the harsh shadows of death. Alone now, night brought them reminders of life.

  He touched her shoulder and she reached up and put her hand on top of his. And that was all that passed between them for over an hour.

  The fire consumed itself and slowly faded to white ash. The evening was cool, but not cold, and they sat in the gathering darkness without need for anything more around them or between them.

  “Come to bed.”

  She said the words not long after his eyes had closed.

  He felt her get up and then take his hand to pull him to his feet. He looked up at her, but darkness absorbed her features. He got up and followed her back into the cabin.

  He took the clothes from his body again. His body was weary. The curtains were smooth over the soft boughs and he collapsed into the bed, ready for sleep.

  She lay beside him, and as she had before, curled close to his body, and put her head on his shoulder.

  He had not expected her closeness. Except for his hands, she had not touched the lizard skin of his body, always she had stroked the torn places where the plastic human flesh still clung in patches. He had accepted that she was not upset to look at his different skin. But he had not expected for her to enfold him as she had before. He held her to him, and though there was no distance between them that could be measured, she moved closer still.

  He slept.

  “My son.” The voice called him from across all time. He knew the voice and did not know how to answer. And so he said nothing.

  Still he slept.

  “Arise, my child, for the time has come.” The summons had no demand, but the response of

  Hadad’s being was complete.

  He woke without weariness, without concern for the night to come or the days past. Ruth turned in her sleep and moved away from his body as she always did. His eyes opened on the closeness of the room.

  “Come.” The voice continued to call to him, though his eyes were open now to the cabin and the forest around it.

  He walked back through the cabin, out onto the steps, and sat naked, looking out upon the stillness of the world.

  “Good.” The voice spoke from a distance. Hadad waited.

  Before him on the path appeared a shape in light and shadow. If the moon had been high, the figure would have been lighted by moonlight, but there was no moon. The radiance came from within it, and the shadows were of it, not on it.

  “You have come down a long path, my son.” The voice came from the figure, but it filled space as though it came from across a galaxy.

  “I have traveled the path from the stars.”

  “The people of the stars shall return to the stars.”

  “And they that recognize the light shall not see death.”

  “You have remembered well.”

  “I do not know what I have remembered. I did not know I knew those words or why I spoke them.”

  “It is enough that you spoke them.”

  “Who are you?”

  The shadowy figure remained on the walkway before him.

  “You have known me before. My name is Amon. I am the last of the priests of Zon. Once we were many. Once we spoke freely of the Lords of Light. Once we opposed the ways of The Leader. Once we taught the children bearing the mark of Zon. You have learned these words from me in the house of the Elders. These words and others of the book of Zon.”

  “Teach me again, Amon, for I have forgotten the words.”

  “My son, the words are not important except for those who do not walk in the truth of Zon. For them the words disrupt, confuse, challenge, and destroy. For those who know the truth they comfort, clarify, support, and enlighten. But for those who walk in the path of Zon, they do not matter.”

  “But I have forgotten the teachings of Zon. In my head are only the words of The Leader, the words of Diana.”

  “The words you speak of are only in your mind. The teachings of Zon fill your being. Zon teaches compassion for others, and your being speaks of compassion for others. Zon teaches compliance with the laws of the universe, and your being moves in harmony with all that is. Zon teaches acceptance of the balance of all actions, and your being walks without wonder the narrow margin between life and death. Zon teaches worthiness in all things, and your being has acknowledged the worthiness of all that was not you. From Ruth you are learning the worthiness of all that is you. This is all you need to know.”

  “But you have come here. Why have you come now if not to teach me?”

  “The time has come for the Lords of Light to redeem the Earth. Listen carefully, for there is much to do:

  “In three days you will leave this place and fly south to find Elizabeth.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “She is called the Star Child. You will recognize her, for she carries the mark of Zon.

  “The followers of Zon will call you Amon, for they will see in you what they expect of me, and the book

  of Zon teaches that one named Amon will take the people back to the stars. People have asked your name, and you have given to each something that they could say with comfort and with ease. You have chosen each name for a purpose. Now the name of Amon chooses you for a purpose. The followers of Zon will recognize in you the power of the Lords of Light. And you may call them friends, for they will know the truth of you. And all whom they call friends will assist you, for you walk in the light. And they shall not experience death on this planet, for having seen the light in you, they, too, shall walk in light.

  “The child, Elizabeth, will go with you wherever you lead, for she has been forewarned that Amon will come to her. And you will learn as she has learned to use the powers of Zon to witness to that power in the Earth. Strike down only those who would do you harm. But know that you can call upon the waters on the Earth and above the Earth to do your bidding, and that the substance of the Earth itself and all that lives upon it will respond to your word.

  “You will teach Elizabeth the ways of Zon, for she does not understand the power that works through her. And you will travel with her for three and half years, bringing the ways of Zon to all the peoples of Earth before the two of you will experience death.

  “And for each of those years you walk in the light of the Lords of Light, you will experience one day of separation from the light. But then you shall stand again, though you were dead, and thereafter you shall be able to walk among the stars as I do.

  “The child Ruth bears will die to fulfill the prophecy of the books of Earth. But the child she will carry of your seed will be strong and prosper on the Earth and shall do battle for the preservation of the people of Earth. And the followers of Zon will watch over Ruth when you depart. For she must fulfill her heritage and embrace your people as her people.

  “Now return to your sleep, my child. And be not troubled, for all that I have told you has been foreseen among both peoples. Repeat
the covenant, my son.”

  “Zon is the cause for which I would die, but there is no cause for which I would kill.”

  “For in Zon there is no death, but only the light of love.”

  The figure spoke the covenant response and then disappeared from the path.

  Hadad sat in the quiet of the night. An owl called from a nearby tree, and wild hyssop filled the air with sweetness.

  He was not certain how long Ruth had stood behind him before he noticed her presence. He reached behind him and pulled her legs to his back. She touched his head with her fingers, but said nothing to break the stillness.

  He felt her skin begin to cool, and so he stood and put his arm around her and led her back to bed.

  There in the soft folds, in the warmth still held in the fabric from her body, he held her to him and knew the touch of her body with his body, knew the look of her eyes with his eyes, and melded with all of her being with all that he was and ever would be.

  In the morning there was only the morning. Afternoon brought only the afternoon, and twilight only twilight. Nothing disturbed the passage of the sun.

  Hadad walked through the woods. The high forest was different from the lumbered orderly ridges of Vida. Aspen, pine, fir, and cedar battled for light, and meadow grasses and shrubs blanketed the contours of the land. He followed the river. The running water was cold, apparently fed by the ice fields high above them on the peaks. But below the lodge were natural pools of incredibly hot water. He looked for the source of one of the pools and found it beneath a rock about three feet high buried in the side of a steep bank.

  The water smelled of minerals. Hadad tasted it and found it salty.

  He climbed the steep bank and found flat prairies edged with cedar and fir, and more pools of hot water. He skirted the pools and wandered the woods beyond the lower prairie, climbing as the hillside rose into the trees. Another pool emerged in the shadows of trees, and there stood a deer.

  She watched him as he approached. And satisfied that he came not as man, not as hunter, not as predator, the doe continued to lick at the salted water. He squatted beside the pool and watched. He was observed as well. He felt eyes from the forest watching. And when he did not move, did not change the forest stillness, an elk, old, with a heavy rack, came and stood beside him at the spring.