“Lakan, are there cameras down here?” His voice was sharp and worried. I reassured him.
“Don’t worry, Grandpop. I’ve been coming down here for two years and no one’s ever caught me.”
“Two years!”
“Since I was 10. That’s when they called me and told me where to find them,” I explained.
“Them? Their spirits?”
“Yes. I suppose. I thought they were the real person, though.” I laughed shakily. “Sometimes, they seem more real than me.”
“In the spirit world, they are more real than you,” he replied. “We need to leave this place and tell the Tribal Police what you have found.”
“And the FBI,” I agreed. “I can take pictures.”
“You have a camera?”
I rolled my eyes. “Grandpop, I have a smartphone. It does everything.”
“And where did you get that?” He asked sharply.
“I ordered it off eBay.” Then, I had to explain prepaid credit cards, the Internet and ordering everything through the library, picking up mail at my PO Box. All of which I had done under his nose. As for money, I had transferred part of my mother’s life insurance into a bankless account in my Internet name.
“The white doctor thinks you are stupid, Lakan. He thinks you are brain-damaged.”
“That’s what I want him to think, Grandfather. I have no intention of going back and becoming one of his guinea pigs. I’m not going to wind up down here in this…plastic coffin.”
“We should leave.” I nodded and retraced our steps back towards his mine and familiar territory. We emerged into a soft twilight; we had been down in the earth longer than I had expected and as we approached the house, we saw the headlights of a big SUV shining on the front porch.
Standing in front of the high beams were two of the doctor’s henchmen, big men that guarded his home and patrolled the clinic grounds.
They were staring up at the solar panel array on the roof. Both men looked like ex-military with buzz cuts, dark jeans, shirts, and jean jackets. Neither wore cowboy boots which set them apart from 99% of the men around us. Both were 6 feet, well-muscled without being bulky and very fit. Dark-haired, brown eyed and armed with semiautomatic pistols that they kept concealed in shoulder holsters. I had seen them before; Dr. Cameron had sent them to pick me up for my monthly checkups. I did not like or trust them any more than I did the doctor. They treated me as if I were a stupid dog, calling me slow and retarded. Of course, I fostered that perception of me.
“Mr. Strongbow,” the younger one with dark brown eyes under an LA Raiders cap greeted. “Out late prospecting?” He didn’t wait for a reply but pointed to the roof. “Nice solar array there. You have somebody come in from the big city to do that?”
Grandpop nodded. “Solar Solutions out of California.”
“That must’ve cost a pretty penny. Didn’t know you were so flush. Come up on a big mother lode?”
“Why? You want to buy in?” My grandfather asked. “For your information, I used my granddaughter’s life insurance. The boy needs light and stimulation for his brain.”
“Isn’t any TV or Wi-Fi out here,” the man laughed. “Besides he’s…slow. What can he learn?” He stared at me and I let drool dribble out of my mouth as I stumbled forward to grab for his baseball cap. He stepped back as if I were contagious and muttered ‘retard’ under his breath.
“What do you want?” Grandpop asked, foregoing his usual good manners. “It isn’t the day or the time for the boy’s checkup.”
“Dr. Cameron would like to see both of you at the clinic tomorrow morning. We thought we’d save you a trip into town, you could spend the night in the clinic hospice rooms.”
“I can drive myself and the boy in,” Grandpop said gruffly.
“Nope. Your truck has a flat tire and no spare.”
Grandpop stared and went to look – his old F-150 sat on its rims, all four tires flat with a thorn in each one. The only thorns around were down in the gully where you’d have to be on a donkey to ride through it.
Grandpop’s lips thinned and I could see him thinking about resisting but his old Colt .45 single action was in his backpack and not easily accessible. I shuffled over to the big black Denali and opened the door, climbing into the driver’s seat where I fumbled with the keys, turning it on and grinding the starter before Redcap could stop me.
With a curse, he reached in and hauled me out by the shirt front. I batted at his face with my hands and tried to bite him. He tossed me into the backseat, grabbed both my hands and seat belted me in making the lap belt unnecessarily tight. His face was close to mine and I wailed in his ears striking at him with my head but he was too quick jerking it out of the way before I could connect.
“Tell him to quit or I’ll hurt him,” he ordered Grandpop.
“Lakan, stop.” I subsided making only small whimpering noises until I pissed my jeans. The smell made him rear back in disgust.
“Pee-pee, Grandpa,” I mumbled, tears running down my face.
“Don’t you touch my boy!” My grandfather roared and charged the men.
“Ganpa! No!” I yelled and kicked the back of the seat. My grandfather stopped, his nostrils flaring like a winded horse and the other men grabbed him by the arm. “Calm down, grandpa. The boy’s not hurt. Get in the car and we’ll take a nice quiet trip to town.”
Grandpa slid into the back seat with me, tossing his backpack onto the floor space between us. Mine, I’d left outside the SUV and the driver threw it into the back. I gave Grandpop a worried look – if either of them went through it, they would find items that did not belong in a retard’s pack.
I put my hand on my grandfather’s knee and used sign to tell him not to worry, that I would not let them hurt either of us. I spoke in Lakota; a language I knew they did not understand.
The two men got into the front, seat belted themselves and locked the doors. Starting the engine, they reversed and drove slowly down our long driveway that was part road and dirt trail. The suspension was tough and we rocked side to side on the ruts and rocks.
It was a two-hour ride into town and once there, we drove slowly down the only paved street in the whole village directly towards the clinic which sat on the very edge of town. It was a modern building built of prefabricated walls, designed to be solid in a thunderstorm, hurricane, and tornadoes of which we had all three. Built of cinder block and steel, it looked like any typical small-town hospital and this one was no more than a five-bed facility. It serviced the entire Wind River Reservation and was the only hospital for 200 miles. For anything serious, patients were driven to Bismarck or airlifted further. Dr. Cameron was the only MD on staff, for surgeries he called in another doctor who flew in once a week to perform those.
Both men exited the vehicle leaving us behind. To my surprise, the doctor was waiting for us at the front doors and the first inklings of panic hit my belly. I gripped Grandpa’s thigh with a cold hand and he whispered to me in Siouan. “Do you think they saw us?”
“I don’t know, Grandpa but I’m not staying to find out.” I unhooked the seatbelt, grabbed our packs and reached for the door handle.
“What? You going to outrun them?” He laughed. “Or change into an owl and fly away?”
I grinned. “Better. Almost.” I stepped out of the SUV and held his hand as the curious trio approached us from the other side of the black Denali. The white government must have gotten one hell of a discount from Cadillac. Every one of these agents drove one.
“Mr. Strongbow?” Cameron asked beginning to become alarmed. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” he countered. I slipped into the mindset I needed and opened the veil between worlds, saw my mother standing there and she said to hurry or they would be able to follow. Grandpop did not waste time asking questions but followed mom through the yellow-tinted place. We walked through yellow sand and the sky was a pale amber, there were no clouds, no sun, and no mountains in the distance. No bugs disturbed the silent air which had a scent like cedar to it.
“Where are we? The spirit world? Rachel –.” Grandpa’s voice was heavy with emotion and I could see he wanted to touch her.
“No, Grandfather. You can’t. If you touch her, you will bind her spirit in this place where she can never leave it.”
“Isn’t she here now?”
“She is here as a visitor as we are here. Neither living nor dead can bide here,” I answered.
“What is this place?”
“The space between. When the doctor changed my DNA, he left me open to places like this. I’ve just now learned how to come through and back.”
“Where are we going?” He asked.
“I’m following mom,” I said shrugging. “She will take us to safety.”
We followed her and he asked a great many questions but she had no answers other than she was our guide in this place. We walked for what seemed like many hours; my legs grew tired and even Grandpa took on a weary countenance. He was, after all in his late 80s.
“What’s it like, Rachel? Are you happy? Is it everything it’s supposed to be?”
She smiled. “I can’t tell you, Granddad. You have to die to experience it.”
“My time will come soon enough, I think,” he whispered and I looked alarmed.
“No, Grandpa. You can’t leave me alone!”
He rubbed my head. “You are never alone, Lakan. Your spirit ancestors are always around you.”
There was no way to tell time in the yellow realm and the few times I had both a watch and a phone, neither worked within.
Mom stopped at a place that didn’t look any different than the last place we’d stopped or the place where we’d entered. “Here is where you exit,” she smiled and blew me a kiss. She sent one to Grandpa and I felt a soft whisper of cool air touch my cheek. I took his hand and opened the veil so both of us could step through. We emerged from the house and the first thing I noticed was that all the lights were on and the front door was wide open. There was never a need to lock it, no one had ever broken into a home on the res and Grandpa lived too far out for most to make the trip in. He had nothing worth stealing. Besides, most of the people knew Grandpop would give them anything if they needed it and asked.
“Did they search the house?” He rushed forward and I stopped him, listening to the vibrations on the air. It told me that whoever had been here was long gone.
“Saddle up the horses, Grandpa. We need to ride into the mountains and hide,” I said before running inside. Grandpop didn’t argue. Most of my valuables I kept in my backpack but my mini laptop had been lying under my bed next to the high-tech Wi-Fi hotspot device I had made from scraps of electronics. That alone was worth a small fortune because of its radical new design. It could hitchhike on Earth Guard and I used it to surf the net as well as give me access to the satellite’s programming. It was one step away from hacking the NSA. Both devices were gone and I didn’t waste time looking for anything else. By the time I had packed a change of clothes, food, weapons and ammo, he had both horses saddled and had turned the stock loose. The dogs milled around our feet, upset because they sensed our agitation.
We were mounting just as I looked down the trail to the entrance of the road off the highway leading to our place. “They’re coming back.” Swiftly, we mounted and trotted the horses off into the soft welcoming darkness.