Chapter Fifty-Nine
Wearily, I dragged my feet onto the trail where markers informed me that it was 6m to the trail head, 2m to Kitsennie Trail and 145m to the Salt Lake City cut-off. Not that I wanted to head there, it held nothing but vast scrubby plains with no cover and plenty of pronghorns.
I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. After four days of hiking, I should have been out of Utah and in the Rockies of Wyoming. I was supposed to meet up with the Kitwillies since Leon had returned to his home and business. Last I’d checked, he’d been pulled in for questioning but since he didn’t know where I was or anything about my plans, the authorities had finally released him. Probably so that they could follow him straight to me. The plan was for him to meet Mike Faraday and the Jacobis and then they would drive up to the Canadian border entering the Mohican reservation just over the border. Where they would disappear via Senator Lourdes’ Lear Jet for overseas.
I wanted a hot shower, coffee brewed in a Keurig with real half and half, to sleep in a bed that had a foam mattress. I wanted clean clothes and real toilet paper, the light from a 60-watt bulb and to hear the sound of a furnace kicking on. I wanted to see the sun come up through a frost-lined window pane and hear the sound of traffic.
When I was through feeling sorry for myself, I turned around and retraced my steps down the mountain for a loop that connected the one I was on for the one I should be on.
In those four days of hiking, I’d managed to travel almost a hundred miles which in this terrain was quite an achievement. I hadn’t seen a single soul in the woods but I had heard helicopters flying search patterns and ATVs in the canyons below me. The fire towers were beacons in the night as their occupant lit the only source of electrical illumination within a hundred miles. I was glad I didn’t have to climb up the tower stairs every day. Going to the bathroom was a bitch as it was on the ground and the only way to use it was to descend a hundred steps and then climb back up. It was no wonder that the Forest Rangers were in such good shape.
I promised myself that the next lake I came upon I was going to bathe, icy water or not. I had not read of any hot springs in the area, not until I was near Yellowstone. That part of my trip would be the most dangerous. People were in and out of the park, poachers had reached the backcountry and the Rangers had many Towers used to keep track of fires and lost tourists.
Around 2 that afternoon, I came upon an old campsite that had seen some serious excavation with the remnants of a burial pit and yellow crime scene tape.
My heart pounded in my chest and I had flashbacks of a tent, two men, and soldiers chasing me. The two men had fed me by their campfire and put me to sleep in their tent.
“I remember,” I said slowly to the trees and the whispering of their ghosts. “I remember running.”
I hurried beyond the clearing and before too long, I came to the banks of a deep creek. When I looked up, I saw a thin trail that switch-backed all the way to the top but I remembered flying, falling from the crest and landing in icy cold water that rolled me down its rapids. Of huddling in a cave made by enclosing boulders with two blue dogs that kept me warm. It took me another hour but I found it and laughed at how small it seemed to my 16-year-old eyes. Something else had used it for a den, inside were small bones and tufts of red and gray fur.
From there, I found my way through aspens just unfurling their new leaves and in the sunlit patches between the rock ledges, new grass was pushing up. It smelled like spring and with spring in the Rockies came the frequent thunderstorms and violent lightning that tore apart the skies and threatened to pull down the mountains. I could feel the freshening breezes on my face and smelled the coming moisture in the air. Any colder and it would come down as snowflakes.
I had just managed to pop open my tent and dive inside as the storm hit. Didn’t get a chance to tie the nylon down with pegs but I wasn’t afraid that it would blow away with me inside it. Because it was camo-colored, I wasn’t worried either that it would stand out like a beacon if it had been red or blue.
The storm passed slowly. Laying on my stomach, I chewed on a granola bar and caught up on the news through my quipp. The NSA and Homeland had gone crazy trying to keep track of the near million people that had cashed in on the free trips. My ruse to give us time to escape seemed to be working.
The storm that had hit the reservation had killed ten from tornadoes, hitting their trailers especially hard and causing over a million dollars in damages. Kansas and Oklahoma had borne the brunt of the storm with the most deaths and damages. Redline Pete and his casino had volunteered millions to help rebuild. Several airports had suffered losses and downed planes, with Mike Faraday’s being one of those reported missing.
I tried to send a text to Maiara but even my quipp could not penetrate the tree cover or the mountains. I would need to get out in the open or climb higher.
The sound of the rain on the tent changed from a demanding roar to a gentle muttering and I rolled over onto my back using my discarded pack as a pillow. After four days of four meals a day, not much was left in the pack. Mostly granola bars and dried fruit. I’d only packed about a week’s worth of rations as anything more would have exceeded the 40 pounds I could carry.
Unzipping the front of the tent, I watched as the clouds brewed a new pot of sky as they blew apart as quickly as they came. The sun sparkled on the dew as if the entire world was coated in diamonds. The air smelled sweet and new, the promise of a clear evening implied in the brilliant blue sky with no trace of white.
I had to wait for the tent to dry off enough to roll it back into its sheath. I figured that I could get another hour or so of walking in before stopping for the night. The sun went down early and fast this high up in the mountains so that it was totally dark by 5 p.m. The moon was on the wane and provided little light deep in the woods.
Trouble was, every step I took resonated deep in my memories and drew me off my intended direction. I walked longer than I had planned and found myself at the end of a deer track that stopped at a rock wall towering hundreds of feet over my head. Too high to climb and too rugged to go around. Besides, my gut was telling me that this spot was important and one of the places that I was meant to find. So, I went forward again until my nose was nearly touching the granite and schist of the stones and that’s when I saw it - a fold like a curtain in the rock with a narrow passage behind it.
My heart beating like a native’s drum chant, I slipped in and followed the twisting rock walls, my feet scuffing through a pale yellow sand. Chunks of quartz had fallen from the walls and I could see the glimmer of gold here and there. I stopped in amazement as the tube widened to reveal a sheltered valley that had somehow escaped the harshest part of winter. Here, the grass was still green and knee-high, the trees still wore their bonnet of leaves and the air was fifteen degrees warmer than outside the valley. Somehow, this valley had been protected from the winter. Deer looked up from their graze and unconcerned, ignored me. The coats on these does and fawns had not changed to winter pelt but were still the red of summer. I heard the snort of horses and whinnies as they saw me. Two came galloping up, dancing to a stop near my outstretched hand. I knew the names of these two bays and called them. Tango and Cash. They crowded me, nuzzling for a treat but all I had was a protein bar. Neither cared but lipped it up, gone in seconds. I laughed as their teeth crunched the oats and caramel to bits.
“I know you,” I said, tears in my eyes. Those eyes rose slowly to the far end of the valley to see a burial platform high in the sky. Unbidden, the Sioux death chant filled my lungs and I sang it for the man I had called Tungasila. Grandfather. I cried then. For my grandfather, for my mother and Rachel. I bid them all farewell at the same time as I let go of all the memories that I had forgotten.
I knew why I had lost my way; it was my heart showing me the way to return to the land of my people and to reclaim what I had lost. I knew the way home to Grandpop’s house and would leave for it next morning.
The same cave still held our supplies from the last time we’d camped here but that could wait. I dropped my gear but kept the rifle as I stripped down to my shorts. Running barefoot, I loped all the way to the hot springs on the bench but once there, I eased myself inch by inch into the nearly scalding water. I grinned as Grandpop’s voice teased in my head.
Groaning in pure bliss, I relaxed as the hot sulfur water unlocked the aches from my bones. Better yet, I remembered Grandpop’s lessons on the plant life and looked over my shoulder for the soapwort I knew grew along the marshy part of the creek. Leaving my natural hot tub, it took me only a few minutes to pull up the plant and skin the root. Slippery, the smell fresh, I went back in and the second time was no easier. I scrubbed until I was squeaky clean and fresh smelling, even over the scent of sulfur’s rotten eggs.
Bathed, I simply ran myself dry which had the added advantage of keeping me warm. Once I was dry, I put on my last clean set of clothes, not that anyone was there if I had chosen to go naked but it was still a bit too cold for that. I went back to peruse the cache of food in the cave. Most of it was in canned goods and MREs. I opened a can of peaches in syrup and ate the whole thing, followed by a can of spam. A lot of people sneered at Spam but I could remember my Grandpop making gourmet meals with it. He had even stocked plastic bottles of water and packets of cherry Kool-Aid. I could almost hear his chuckling as I mixed up a water and shook it till it turned a red as glowing as a garnet.
Almost as red as your hair, he would say. Huh, who ever heard of a red-headed injun?
Then, my mom would say, He’s related to the Firebird in the old legends. She would gently tease me about my insatiable thirst for the red Kool-Aid and how it turned my lips red as if I had become a vampire. Grandpop would laugh and tell me there were no such creatures but the Wendigo might get me if I was lazy or told a lie. So many good memories had returned and with them, the knowledge of how to find my way home.
I went to sleep in the cave on my spread out a sleeping bag with my head towards the entrance where I could watch the stars. Even though I was exhausted and limp from the hot bath, I was too excited to fall asleep right away. I lay there and listened to the night noises and heard the horses as they grazed within yards of my campsite. Deer moved as quietly through the knee-high grass as a whisper of thought. Nighthawks made their eerie cries and the wind rattled the tokens on Grandpop’s grave. It became a lullaby that eventually dragged me deep into a peaceful slumber.
I woke just as the sun finished climbing over the rim of the hidden canyon and saw why it had fared so well during the winter. The rock itself gathered the sunlight and reflected it back into the valley, heating it up more than the outside forest, making almost a tropical climate inside the bowl. I sat up, stretched and yawned. My body was very stiff and sore; I kind of wished that I had thought to bring painkillers with me or at least some ibuprofen.
Dressing wasn’t a problem as I’d fallen asleep in my clothes but the first order of the day was to dig a toilet. That chore was done, I used it and then went through the food for my breakfast. Dehydrated eggs, vacuumed sealed bacon and muffins. I wasn’t afraid to start a fire in the cave or the valley but because it was a natural thing for me, I made a small one and then hit myself when I remembered that Grandpop had brought a camp stove with us. And the small bottles of fuel. Within minutes, the smell of scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh coffee filled the cave and made me drool. I ate with my fingers, not bothering to dig out the utensils and toasted Gramps’ spirit with a cup of light coffee gratis a can of condensed milk.
Tango and Cash milled about curious as to what I was doing. I went back into the cave and looked for a saddle but the closest thing I could find was a saddle blanket. That would have to do, along with a rope bridle I made from some leftover rope. I climbed on from a tree stump, not like they did in the movies. My chest was still too sore to go jumping up onto a bareback horse that hadn’t been ridden in several years. At least they weren’t razor-back thin, I didn’t think my butt could handle it. Tango didn’t even step sideways. He turned his neck around and smelled me, then waited for me to nudge him in the ribs before he started for the gap out of the valley. Cash followed without me calling him and the rest of the wild horses trotted back and forth but stayed in the bowl. Their whinnies carried no further than the first twist of the entrance.
I waited in the fold for a few minutes, listening to the sounds outside the passage and watching the horses’ ears. If anyone was close to the exit, the horses would know and warn me. When I was certain we were alone, I kicked Tango on and emerged onto the trail that led to Grandpop’s house. It was wildly overgrown as if all nature had conspired to hide it yet the horses knew the way and I let them guide me.
“Take us home, boys,” I said and patted Tango’s neck.