A Spider Sat Beside Her

by K E Lanning

  Lowry clicked on the television and found the morning news, but her jaw dropped when the newscaster said, “Breaking news just in: the jury in the Jean-Luc Kimalu trial has just returned with a final verdict. The head juror has informed the court that the jury finds Jean-Luc Kimalu guilty of sabotage and endangerment of the lives of all on board the International Space Station. Sentencing will follow after the judge completes her deliberations of the trial evidence.”

  In shock, Lowry slumped onto the edge of the bed, shaking her head. Staring at the TV, she whispered to herself, “My god, that poor soul.” Halder must have put in a special order for a fast guilty verdict.

  Lowry mechanically dressed as the news continued but turned it off, fuming at the defamatory statements spun against Jean-Luc as icing on the verdict. In the silence of the room, images from her nightmare resurfaced in her mind, and she paced around the bed, shaking her head. Without thinking, she grabbed her purse and left the room, running down the stairs and out a side door of the hotel. She had to escape and try to clear her head, to make sense of the nonsensical.

  With no destination in mind, she randomly headed toward Wisconsin Boulevard, the acrid smell of the city filling her nostrils. As she walked to the corner, the blaring horns and clamor of construction assaulted her ears. The light turned green, and she shuffled across the street in the midst of a throng of people, moving together like a centipede crawling across a rock.

  Once across the street, Lowry stopped as she caught her reflection in the mirrored façade of the glass building, her brunette hair blowing in the wind of the skyscraper canyon. She looked up through the towering edifices at a plane ripping through a patch of blue sky, leaving a scar of ice crystals behind. People rushed around her, but she stood still, like a stone in a river, disoriented in the chaos of civilization.

  Someone jostled her forward, and she wandered down the sidewalk aimlessly, reflecting on her humanness and her empathy for the Inuits. Like them, she was deeply connected to the natural world and had lived in the wilderness of a polar region, where humans were minor actors in the play of life.

  Vaguely, Lowry looked up at the street signs, realizing she was walking toward the Federal Courthouse district. An intense urge hit her—she wanted to talk to Jean-Luc, to express her sorrow and to find out his side of the story. Catching a cab, she went to the federal jail where he was being held. Stepping out of the Robocab, she stared at the forbidding façade and then took a deep breath and went inside.

  The security officers scrutinized her as she pushed through the heavy doors, but she steadied herself and went to the front desk to ask if she could see Jean-Luc. She signed her name and waited on a bench until a guard signaled her to follow him. They went through a security door and headed down a hall. As they walked along, she inwardly shuddered at the incessant echo of the clacking of their shoes.

  They came to another set of heavy doors, and the guard opened the door, leading the way into the cellblock. Shivering in the icy glow of the lights, she waited for the guard to reclose the door. She swallowed hard at the stares of the furtive faces of the men in the cells as they walked down the corridor until the guard stopped in front of one of the cells. Lowry chewed her lip, and her steps slowed as she approached Jean-Luc’s cell.

  The cell was filtered in anemic sunlight from the small, mesh-covered window. The guard stepped back, and a sigh escaped from Lowry as the vestiges of the nightmare faded away. Sataa was alive, sitting cross-legged outside the cell, facing Jean-Luc. In his native tongue, Sataa was speaking softly to him, but Jean-Luc just stared vacantly at the cement floor, his face pensive and drained.

  The guard set a chair for her outside the cell. “You can talk to him from here, and don’t get too close to the bars.”

  At the guard’s words, Jean-Luc turned toward them, flashing a dirty look at the guard and growling like a dog. The guard stepped back and stood at attention, watching them carefully. Lowry sat on the hard metal chair, clearing her throat in the awkward silence.

  With a slight smile, she murmured, “Hello.”

  Jean-Luc furrowed his brow. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m wondering that myself,” she said, shrugging. “I guess I’m here because I don’t think you’re guilty.”

  Jean-Luc stared at her incredulously and then guffawed. “Since when does guilt have anything to do with a conviction?” His lip curled into a snarl. “This trial is merely a tool the United States government is using to pull the teeth out of our organization. They are systematically destroying the leaders who have held the homesteaders off our land. They’ve already bankrupted one of our other leaders by calling in his debts.” He jabbed his thumb toward his chest. “I am just the second one on their hit list.”

  Lowry leaned forward. “Jean-Luc, I want to learn about your tribe.”

  He blinked and then snapped, “Another bleeding heart who acts like they give a shit?”

  She gazed at him, shaking her head. “No, I was raised at the bottom of the world instead of the top, and I actually do give a shit.”

  He studied her, and then, with a resigned drop of his shoulders, he spoke. “My people have a rich heritage. Despite outside influences, we had been able to maintain many of the tribal rituals because we were so isolated before the melting of the ice.”

  Sighing, he gazed upward, his head tilted back. “I remember, as a small child, playing and dancing with the people in our village. It was a natural life filled with pride in the way of the ancestors—we hunted and worked together with such joy in our lives. The beauty of the land was extraordinary; the brilliant blue sea teemed with sea animals, and birds filled the skies. Our people were in balance with our world and took only what we needed from Mother Earth to live.”

  His face twisted, and he shot her an angry look. “But as the ocean started to move inland and the snow pack melted, our way of life began to change. The animals we depended upon left or died, their habitat disappearing as the ice melted away. However, we learned to adapt and hunt the caribou, which now stayed longer in our ranges, and other animals and birds began to appear, moving up from the south as the earth was exposed to the sun, and grass and low brush began to grow where only snow existed before. Our people changed some of the old ways but were still a cohesive tribe.

  “Then, one day, my brother and I went hunting together, and a group of interlopers came over the hill in a four-wheeler, drunk out of their minds, and almost hit us. If my brother hadn’t pulled me back, I would have been killed.” He shook his head and scowled. “Ever since then, our tribe has fought to keep our land, but the government is stronger than we are and determined to steal our lands and our lives. Now, there are never-ending waves of people who keep coming for the land and the minerals in the earth. And many of these people who invade are not the cream of the crop, as it were, and in some cases are outright criminals who were forced by one means or another out of the south. It breaks the hearts of my people to see the land destroyed and our way of life disappear.”

  Despair enveloped his face. “History always repeats itself. The powerful take what they want and, in the process, destroy entire cultures. Then they have the audacity to feel sorry about it in a hundred years.”

  Lowry nodded sadly. “Like a flock of birds, once the fruit is plucked and eaten, I’m afraid they look for their next plunder.”

  Jean-Luc dropped his head in his hands, his face haggard and worn with battling a force greater than himself.

  Sataa turned to Lowry and opened his mouth. She gasped at the sight of a strange animal object appearing on his tongue. Sataa reached up, pulling the small, carved creature out of his mouth, smiling as he held the thing up, turning it around so she could see it.

  Jean-Luc looked up and explained to her, “He is the last practicing shaman of my tribe. What he has is a carved sea scorpion, which is his spirit helper, and it was passed down to him from generations of shamans.”

  Sataa began to speak softly, and Jean Luc translated for her. �
��My people believe that there is a spirit in the land. We still hold the Bladder Feast every year in my tribe to honor the spirits of the animals who were harvested the year before. I remember a quote from Aua, an Iglulik shaman:

  “‘The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls. All the creatures that we have to strike down and destroy in order to eat and make clothes for ourselves have souls, souls that do not perish with the body and that must therefore be pacified lest they should take revenge on us.’”

  Jean-Luc spat out, “Modern humans have killed all souls. They don’t even acknowledge that the Earth has a soul, so they crush life into asphalt wherever they can.”

  He looked at her dully as Sataa spoke again, and then he translated. “He says you are not like the others; you have an independent spirit.” He stood and faced her, smiling sadly. “You remind him of the story of Sedna.”

  Lowry looked at Sataa and said to Jean-Luc, “Please, tell me the story.”

  Jean-Luc spoke softly as he told the story. “Sedna was a proud girl who refused to marry any of the suitors who were brought before her. And so she ran away with a seabird who promised her the good life. She discovered this was a lie and called to her father to rescue her. Her father took her away in a boat after killing the bird-husband, but the other birds followed. The birds created a giant storm, and her father threw Sedna overboard to save his own life. He cuts his fingers off in his despair over the loss of his child. Sedna went on to dwell in the sea and became the ruler of the sea mammals.”

  Entranced by the story, Lowry whispered, “Sedna of the sea.”

  A shout rang out from one of the other cells, and the guard ran back toward the scream, calling on his radio for backup. Shrieks echoed along the corridor, followed by shouts from the officers as they subdued the prisoner.

  Lowry rose and stood facing Jean-Luc, who stood tall in front of her, his dark eyes flicking back and forth as he studied her. Here was a true champion of his people; a man who fought on regardless of self-sacrifice and nothing like the Franks or Edwards of the world. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She cleared her throat. “Jean-Luc, this may sound strange . . . but I’ve never kissed a hero, and I’d like to.”

  Blinking in surprise, he stared at her, and then his face softened. He moved close to the bars, and Lowry stepped forward and met his lips between the bars—not a sensual kiss, but an acknowledgement of respect for each other.

  Lowry flinched as the guard blew his whistle and yelled, “Step back, miss!”

  They both stepped away from the bars, and she raised her hand to the guard. “Please, just a few more minutes, I promise.”

  The guard looked at her, pointing down the hall to where an inmate was being dragged out of his cell. “Lady, I already have one nut strapped into a straightjacket; I don’t need another incident today.” He glanced at his watch. “You have five more minutes, if you stay back from the bars.”

  Lowry nodded and looked back at Jean-Luc. “Jean-Luc, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have helped.”

  Jean-Luc’s eyes had an eerie light as he smiled at her. “I believe you. Thank you for your effort at the trial, and I appreciate you coming here today. I want to hope that our tribal lands will be saved, but honestly, I don’t believe it.” He touched his lips with two fingers and motioned goodbye. “Lowry, you have a honest soul within you.”

  Sataa stretched his hand toward her and pressed a wadded up handkerchief into her hand. The guard glanced at them, so she quickly stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket. She waved to them as the guard cocked his head toward the exit. Walking back down the hall, she was indifferent to the staring eyes of the prisoners as they left the cell block.

  After they signed her out, Lowry pushed through the heavy doors of the jail and stopped at the top of the steps, breathing in the fresh air. She opened the handkerchief and shook the contents into the palm of her hand, sucking in her breath at the sight of a pale finger. Examining it carefully, she realized it was a carving. “Sedna,” she whispered, clutching the ivory finger.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lowry urged the horse faster through a forest buried in fog. The cool air nipped at her face as they broke through the mist, racing to the top of the ridge. They stopped at the crest, above the dense clouds wedged like a cocoon in the valley below.

  She breathed deeply the crisp air of a Virginia autumn, gazing at the sensuous curves of the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains dressed in shades of red, yellow, and maroon. Millions of years ago, the mountains had been as tall as the Alps, but erosion had worn away the tall peaks and filled the valleys below. This serene region was far from the coast, and though it had been the setting for one of the most violent periods for humanity, it had not been impacted by the Melt.

  A red-tailed hawk drew Lowry’s eye, and she followed her path across the sky. Two crows followed, harrying the raptor along its way. With the rays of the sun, the fog began to break in the valley below, revealing a beautiful red fox standing at the edge of the trees.

  This was the first morning since the trial that she hadn’t felt numb. She had come to her maternal grandparents’ farm in western Virginia to rest for a week before returning to the space station. Shaken from the experience of the trial, she barely remembered her trip from D.C. Since her arrival, her grandparents had asked her little, and yet she could see the worry in their faces. Almost in desperation, she had ridden one of their horses into the rolling hills every day, struggling with her role in the Machiavellian theater in which she had been an unwitting actor and grappling with the helpless feeling that she could do nothing to aid the Inuit tribe.

  Lowry turned her horse and started along the ridgeline, wanting to capture every nuance of the beauty surrounding her. A breeze kicked up, bringing the scent of the earth as it warmed in the sun. They walked over a trickle of water streaming out of a fissure in the rocks above.

  A motion caught her eye, and she smiled at the sight of two huge greyhounds streaking up the valley toward her. The graceful dogs were poetry in motion sprinting across the curves of the land. She shielded her eyes against the sun, and in the distance behind the dogs, she saw two horses with riders slowly cantering toward her across the valley. She waved to her grandparents. They returned her wave, and she started down the face of the hillside to meet them.

  They were lovely people who treated man and beast with the same joy and dignity. She couldn’t help but grin as she approached them.

  “We brought lunch!” her grandfather shouted.

  “Thank goodness!” Lowry called back. “It’s only been an hour or so since that huge breakfast.”

  They all laughed as they slowed to a walk, and she turned her horse to join them.

  Her grandmother said, “We thought we would have lunch at our old fishing hole. Do you remember Bear Falls?”

  Lowry chuckled. “How could I forget the place where I learned to swim?” She cocked her head. “But I do remember the time when I slipped on the rocks and fractured my arm.”

  “Oh, dear. I’d forgotten that incident—it was so long ago.”

  Lowry laughed. “No bad memories, Grandma. It’s a lovely spot.”

  They moved to single file as they entered the forest, following a worn path down to the river and along the bank to the falls. Lowry recognized the rock formations ahead and bit her lip in excitement as she heard the rush of water over the rocks.

  They picketed the horses and climbed up the huge rock balanced over the river. Lowry shielded her eyes from the bright sun on the exposed boulder. An errant breeze kicked up, and laughing, they struggled to spread out the blanket, which threatened to race away with the wind. Lowry grabbed several loose stones and placed them on each corner of the blanket to keep it from being carried off.

  Lowry’s grandmother set down the food hamper, and they sat cross-legged around it as she doled out the sandwiches and drinks. Through the thin coverlet, Lowry felt the warmth coming from the limestone rock underneath t
hem.

  As they got ready to eat, her grandfather said softly, “Let this food nurture our bodies as your teachings nurture our souls.”

  Her grandmother murmured, “Amen.”

  No one spoke as they started to eat, now hungry with the exertions of the morning.

  Her grandfather pointed to a vine with fading blooms nestled under a rock near the water’s edge. His face lit up as he said, “Look: there is some Man of the Earth vine still holding onto its blooms—a last gasp before winter.”

  Lowry stared at the white flowers with purple centers, beginning to wilt after the morning frost had bit their delicate petals. The memory of Elliot Halder and his devious games flooded back into her mind—so opposite of these sweet people.

  She said bluntly, “Well, winter will soon kill any hope of flowers.” She lay back on the face of the rock with the sharp cracks in the stone digging into her head.

  Her grandmother asked her softly, “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Just thinking of the evil side of humans and what it is that makes people value power over love.”

  Her grandmother shrugged, shaking her head. “I don’t understand it myself. How can you allow yourself to damage your soul for a fleeting moment of dominance over another being? Nothing is worth that. You might as well thrust a dagger into your own heart as lie and cheat to hurt others.”

  Lowry turned onto her side, staring into the water rushing over the rocks. “Children are taught to love one another. Is it just another lie?” She sat up and waved her hand at the surrounding beauty. “To children, everything is a miracle—every tiny bud and insect. By adulthood, all that joy is burned out of us until none of the wonder of life remains.” Her face was pinched as she cast a stone into the water. “No wonder God kicked us out of the Garden.” The plunk of the rock echoed against the limestone walls.

  Her grandmother was the first to break the silence. “Now, my dear, you mustn’t become cynical.” She scooted close, wrapping her arm around Lowry’s waist. “Lowry, we know you’ve had a tough time, and if you don’t want to return to the space station, we would understand and support you. And we could use some help around here anyway.”