by Vella Munn
Moaning under her breath, she put an end to philosophical considerations and turned her head so the breeze caressed her cheek. Coming to a slight rise, she spotted the small lot where she’d left her car. There were several vehicles near it, probably belonging to those staying in the nearby campground. They were strangers; she’d never belonged to a tribe, never been part of a group that depended on each other for survival.
“I thought,” she admonished herself, “that you’d had enough of philosophy for one day.” When she realized she’d spoken aloud, she looked around, but except for a tiny, brilliant yellow bird, she was still alone.
Unless Loka was watching her.
She should have known that the rig bearing the park’s logo belonged to Fenton. If she’d been the slightest bit cautious, she might have been able to avoid the man. However, because she’d been incapable of freeing herself from her thoughts, she had no choice but to acknowledge him when he joined her in front of her car.
“You’re out bright and early,” he said. He glanced down at her breasts, her waist, her legs, the look coolly appraising. “Not as easy staying out there as you thought it would be. Is that it?”
Because the real explanation was incredibly complicated and not at all his business, she tried to change the subject by asking why he was already at work.
“I was hoping to catch you before you took off.” He nodded at her camera and canteen. “I thought you might pack up and get on the road at first light. I was wrong.”
“Yes,” she said. “You were.” She thought about walking around him but guessed that trying to avoid him would only make him more determined.
“I still don’t get it.” He sounded as if she’d deliberately tried to disappoint or deceive him. “What if Dr. Grossnickle decides he can’t wait for you? Can he fire you?”
“He won’t,” she said although her boss had the power to do exactly that.
“You sound pretty sure of yourself. What is it? You’ve made yourself so valuable that it would never enter his mind?” Although they had the area to themselves, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here. Hey, we’ve all got to look after number one, don’t we?”
She wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at but wasn’t going to make the mistake of asking. “It’s that kind of world,” she said, figuring she couldn’t go too far wrong with that.
“Ain’t that the truth.” He brushed an insect off the side of his neck. “The gnats were out in force last night. Damn, I hate those things.”
She hadn’t noticed an insect invasion but maybe she’d been too preoccupied. Before she could come up with any observation about things that crawled or flew or both, he gave her what she’d be willing to bet was a calculated smile. “I’m glad I met you. Really glad. I don’t know if I told you, but I majored in archaeology until halfway through my junior year. That’s when the light bulb went on and I realized the chance of making a name for myself in that field was somewhere between damn little and none.”
“Well, no. It’s not a field to get into if your primary goal is to get rich.”
“And it is. Rich and famous,” he said with a laugh. “However, that isn’t as easy as I’d like it to be. All I can do right now is hope I come up with the right combination that’ll get me noticed, and rewarded. I’ll tell you, if I was sitting on the gold mine you are, I’d be jumping through every hoop there is to make sure I’m riding the crest of the wave.”
Fenton’s speech was riddled with clichés. She could only hope that his presentations were more original. “I’m not sure we’ve reached the crest yet,” she explained. “Maybe we’ll never get everything resolved.”
“Exactly!” His eyes glittered as if she’d said the most brilliant thing he’d heard in a year. “I’ve been thinking. I know how to grease a few squeaky wheels. Did I tell you, my uncle’s a state senator. That’s how I got this job—a little pulling of the strings. Not much, I want you to know. I can do it. Damn straight I can. But it doesn’t hurt to have someone capable of getting your name to the top of the pile, you know.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Sure, my uncle is in California, but Senator Baldwin knows a lot of Oregon’s politicians. What I’m saying is, if I ask, he’ll tell me who has pull in these kinds of things. A little behind-the-scenes negotiating on my part and that Indian organization will pack up its bags and go home.”
Not only didn’t she believe that, but she seriously doubted that Fenton had enough clout to influence the politicians who’d deliberately been taking a neutral stand on things. Wondering if Fenton’s uncle hadn’t gotten him this job because he wanted his nephew out of his hair, she pointed out that this was an issue for the courts, not politicians. Fenton had just begun to tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about when a battered, once-blue pickup with a pathetic excuse for a muffler pulled into the parking lot. Instead of turning off the engine, the driver sat behind the wheel of the roughly idling vehicle.
“Damn him. He never gives up.”
“Who?” Tory asked, glad for any change in the conversation.
“Him.” Fenton jabbed his finger at the driver. “Black Schonchin. He lives over by Tulelake on some farm he and a bunch of his relatives own. He’s been nothing but trouble.”
Tulelake was the nearest town, a small ranching community with little to show for itself beside a couple of cafés, a hardware store, post office and grocery. Even from this distance she could see that the elderly man was Indian. “Black Schonchin,” she said. “That’s an unusual name.”
“I think he made it up, not that you’d get him to admit it. Apparently some Modoc named Peter Schonchin was the last survivor of the war. Black must have decided he’d rather go by that instead of whatever name his parents had. As for the Black, there was a Black Jim who got hung alongside Captain Jack.”
“Then he’s Modoc?”
“Oh, yeah. He never lets me forget it. Damn, he’s going to sit there until I talk to him. Look, don’t leave, will you? I hope this won’t take long.”
Although Fenton hadn’t indicated he wanted her to join him and Black, neither had he told her she couldn’t tag along. As they reached the pickup, Mr. Schonchin turned off the engine. After kicking and sputtering for a good half minute, the truck finally fell silent.
Mr. Schonchin kept his attention on Fenton, giving her the opportunity to study him. If she’d been an artist, she’d want to paint him. His sagging, leathery, expressive face spoke loud and clear of a life spent out-of-doors. His eyes seemed locked in a permanent squint. His cheeks looked as if they’d been rubbed with sandpaper until they’d hardened in self-defense. Much of his hair was gray but enough black remained that she could guess he’d once had rich, midnight hair like Loka.
Black Schonchin wouldn’t understand the concept of conditioning creams, of sunscreen, of sunglasses. Neither would he see any reason to go inside just because the air had a wind-chill factor of minus twenty. The way she guessed he saw things, if a man made his living from the land, he lived with that land.
“How’d you know to look for me here, Black?” Fenton asked in a tone that showed no respect for the Modoc’s age. “I don’t have time for you today.”
Black regarded Fenton for a long time before moving so much as a muscle. “You say this because you hide from the truth.”
“Your version of the truth. Come on, Black. You know how I feel about this nonsense of yours.”
“It is not nonsense.” Black pointed at the sky, his eyes following the line of his finger. “The truth is written in the stars. You cannot see it because you aren’t Modoc.”
“You’ve got that right. I thought we had this out earlier. I’m not about to keep people out of certain areas while you and the rest of your group poke around. Restricting tourists in any way, shape or form is the last thing I’m going to let happen.”
“A man who walks blindfolded will never see the sunrise.”
“Where
do you get these sayings of yours? You must stay up half the night thinking of new ones. Look—” Fenton made a show of studying his watch “—I told you the last time you were here, if you want to talk to me, you’ve got to make an appointment. You must have left Tulelake before dawn to get here this early. Too bad it was a wasted trip.”
“Maybe. And maybe I saw him.”
“Don’t get going on that, Black. I don’t have time. I will not, repeat, I will not close off the butte.”
“He was there this morning. He wants back the Telshna place.”
“Telshna?” Fenton frowned, then waved an impatient hand at Black. “Never mind. I’m not interested in whatever Modoc word you’ve conjured up this time. This spirit warrior business of yours has gone far enough.” On that, Fenton turned away from the pickup. When his gaze landed on Tory, he repeated his desire to talk to her, then asked whether she planned on leaving anytime soon. She gave him a noncommittal answer, knowing all too well that that would only feed his curiosity. Although he stared at her until she felt uncomfortable, she didn’t elaborate, and he finally muttered something about having a meeting to attend. After getting her to promise to hook up with him later in the day, he got in his rig and drove off.
Although it took a great deal of self-control to wait until he could no longer see her in his rearview mirror, Tory pointedly didn’t move until Fenton was out of sight. “I’m sorry he was so abrupt,” she told Black. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say next; what mattered was finding a way to get him to elaborate on what he’d said earlier. “It sounds as if he really was in a hurry. Strange, he didn’t say anything about it to me.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Well, I—maybe he doesn’t.”
“I know he doesn’t. It’s all right. I feel the same way about him. Actually, I was just trying to bug him.”
Tory smiled. She had expected something ancient and profound to come out of the Indian’s mouth. “I think you succeeded.”
“Good. He doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t let it bother you, miss. We can’t all get along with everyone else. Besides, the less he involves himself in what we’re trying to do, the better. I don’t trust him.”
“Don’t trust him. Why not?” she asked although it was none of her business.
“White man speak with forked tongue.” Black smiled briefly. “You’re staying here, are you?”
She was going to have to revamp her impression of old Indian men. Whatever he was, he was no stoic. She explained, briefly, about having rented the cabin, but said nothing about her ties to General Canby. When Black reached for the ignition key, she placed what she hoped was a casual hand on the open window. “You were talking about someone Fenton referred to as a spirit warrior. What was that all about?”
A moment ago Black had impressed her as a man of today, a man comfortably carrying on his share of a casual conversation with a stranger. Now, although it might only be a trick of the morning light, she swore there was new life in his eyes. His mouth worked, but he didn’t say anything, telegraphing to her that he hadn’t expected the question and didn’t know how to respond.
“It just sounds interesting, that’s all.” She hated sounding as if she were stumbling through her words, but couldn’t think of any way to change that. “I was at Captain Jack’s Stronghold the other day. There—” Careful. “It’s an impressive place with a strong sense of history.”
“Hmm.”
“Look, I’m an anthropologist. It’s in my nature to be interested in these things.”
“Anthropologist. What are you doing here?”
This man kept her off-balance with his changing moods. She now swore he didn’t think any more of her than he did of Fenton. “A vacation. I’ve really had my nose to the grindstone lately.”
“You’re not here to do research?”
The question sounded innocent enough; it was the tone behind his words that warned her that no matter what she said, he wouldn’t take it at face value. “I promise. No research. Just call it a busman’s holiday. I’m so glad I took the time to—”
“What are you doing?”
“I just told you. I’m on a vacation.”
“No.” All hints of sociability had been stripped from his voice. His eyes, although still nearly hidden beneath dry, loose flesh, made her feel like a bug under a microscope. “What is your job?”
She could have lied. Probably should have come up with anything except the truth. Except she wanted this old Modoc to know that she wasn’t afraid of him. When she mentioned the Alsea project, she swore she could feel his distrust, his hate even envelop her.
“You’re one of them. One of those trying to steal what doesn’t belong to you.”
“That’s not it at all. We’re all highly trained researchers. We know what we’re doing. Do you think we want the site to be ruined? That’s why we’re determined to do it right, so there are no—”
“It isn’t yours. The village belongs to those whose ancestors understood the land.”
Halfway through a rejoinder, she forced herself to stop. Not sure what she could say to salvage the conversation, she took a moment to survey her surroundings. People were beginning to stir at the campsites. A dog yapped and a baby squalled. “I don’t believe that only Indians can understand the land. When I was at the stronghold, I asked myself what it had been like for the Modocs that winter. Their babies must have cried. Every morning they had to go in search of water. The constant foraging for wood was—”
“And food. Without the cattle they stole, they would have starved. I’ve seen the work of anthropologists. Fenton thinks because I am old with dirt under my nails that I’m a stupid man, but he’s wrong. I know what you and the others are trying to do.”
“Then you know we’re trying to salvage what’s left of the past. I don’t understand why you’re against us.”
“Because you put my people’s heritage in boxes.”
“Boxes?”
“The past is not something to put labels on. You write books that say this and that and the other thing about my ancestors. That isn’t right. My heritage isn’t about what my grandparents’ grandparents called their gods and how one became a shaman. How do you know? Were you there?”
“Of course not, but—”
“You look at a carved mask or boat and decide that those things were used in a certain way, but because you weren’t there, you will never know. A lie told and retold becomes a lie believed by all.”
“It isn’t a lie. We—”
“No! Listen to me. I was educated at a white man’s school. I live in the white man’s world. It’s not what I want, not when my eyes and heart are Modoc. But my ancestors are dead. Because they were torn from this place, I’ll never know the truth about them. The past is not a picture to be placed in a book. It is belief and nature, the land and creatures living on it speaking to a boy and guiding him into manhood. History should be free to live in the air and fly with the wind so each of us can breathe in the air and find our own truth.”
She wasn’t sure what he was getting at, and yet it made a terrible and proud kind of sense. “The truth,” she whispered. “Is that why you’re here this morning? Because you want to learn the truth about this spirit warrior?”
Jaw clenched, Black stared over the steering wheel until she despaired of getting any kind of answer from him. Then: “Your heart is white. More than that, it’s the heart of one who seeks labels, not understanding that which lives in the earth and on mountaintops. You’ll never know the truth about what I seek.”
Wouldn’t she?
Chapter 7
So many men had died here. Staring out at the windswept expanse, Tory tried to imagine what that long-ago spring day had been like. Historians considered the ambush that had taken place here to be one of the greatest examples of Indian military strategy. But had those historians stood on this spot and thought, really tho
ught, about the young men who had lost their lives on this barren land?
Turning in a slow, deliberate circle, she went back in time to that fateful day not long after General Canby had been killed. The Modocs, for reasons she didn’t fully comprehend, had left their stronghold and had scattered—or so the soldiers thought. A number of troops had taken off in search of them. Why they had chosen a gully to climb into was something else she didn’t understand. What she did know was that the decision had been a fatal one because the Modocs had snuck up on the soldiers while they rested. The first shots had sent the men into panic. She didn’t blame them for trying to run back to headquarters; the tragedy was in how few had made it.
A sense of unease crawled up her spine, and she lifted her hand to shield her eyes, staring intently at anything that might hide—hide what, Loka? It was still early enough in the day that no other visitors had yet made their way out here. The thought that she was over a mile from the road and that the path she’d come on was narrow and rocky increased her sense of isolation. If Loka, man of mystery and intrigue, stood beside her, would she still feel this way? Maybe—maybe it wasn’t Loka at all who was filling her with apprehension.
The wind brought history with it. It was as if it had never lost touch with the sounds of wounded and dying men, terrified horses, desperate warriors. If she remembered right, the day of the ambush had been warm, the sky cloudy but not threatening. The soldiers must have thought the war was coming to an end.
Had the solders laughed and sung that day? Surely there’d been talk of what they’d do once they went home. Maybe they were thinking of sweethearts and wives, the relief of being able to go to a more civilized place. And then—