Chapter Six
We reached the spot where they said an ancient city had once been, only I didn’t see anything but dry desert and stone. My ancestors had supposedly been here at some point, but I felt no call of affinity to the place.
It wasn’t my home. Truthfully I didn’t have a home anymore.
I’d been raised back East in the mountains, and although the mountains were beautiful I hadn’t fit in there enough to want to stay. I fit in better out here in the West, but even here I felt reined in by different interests, namely the law.
Truly though it wasn’t that I was against there being law and order. I wasn’t against it as I was well aware for the need for it. It was simply just that I wanted to be singularly apart from it, but that was never going to happen. If it wasn’t the law then it was long arm of the government that operated on a level beneath the law on the pretext that it was for the greater good of the people.
Thinking about the government and how I was in the grips of it even now I thought of my extended family now all likely slaughtered by said government. I had to get these bracelets off!
It was akin to being locked away back in that Mexican hellhole of a prison in terms of having to act natural around the likes of Lawrence.
An upthrusting jut of rock was ahead and it was this that we stopped in front of. For the first time I saw hints of civilization.
Cut into the rock were stone stairs leading upward. My curiosity piqued I eagerly dismounted and moved forward with the others, who were now careful to give me a wide birth.
I held back from the stairs at the last and let Christy go up the stairs before me. With a smile she moved past me and began climbing.
Watching her I abstractly realized that something in me had changed. I liked women. Most of all I liked the physical passion there was to be had with them, but right now when my mind should have been caught up with what it would be like to slide my hands down and over the contours of this woman before me my mind was completely elsewhere.
Christy was more than just a body and she was different than any woman I had ever known. She was a lady in every sense of the word and I desired her more than I had any woman before her. That said, if I didn’t come up with something fast the object of my every fascination as of late could end up dead soon and most likely brutalized before that moment of death came. Avoiding that fate for Christy was all I could think of right now.
My expiration date was certain. Once I was past being of use they’d turn the pain on and leave it on.
Christy’s existence might stretch out longer as they would likely need the services of her grandfather for some time to come, but there was no way they would leave any civilian held against their will that had been privy to the goings on out here in the desert alive and able to speak of what they had seen. Lawrence wasn’t the type to leave loose strings, hence his aggravation over not being able to locate my sister.
I’d thought a lot about my sister, as well as her daughter, Tara. I’d even prayed for them, but I doubted such a prayer from one like me would do any good.
“Alright those of you who haven’t been here before stay to your left and keep hold of the rope.”
I came out of my thoughts at the sound of Claire’s voice. She gave me an evil eye, but stayed back as I moved into the hole that opened up mysteriously on top of this jut of rock in the middle of nowhere.
Darkness closed in around me and idly I thought on whether or not this was my opportunity to get myself and Christy free. My hand stayed on the lead rope though that ran along the one side of the tunnel. There were just too many unknowns to start a bid for freedom right now.
The stone stairs were slippery and rounded off beneath us as if testament to the long passage of time that had transpired since their creation and subsequent exposure to the effects of wind and rain water.
Wind breathed past us down into the depths and I marveled at where it could be that we were going to. I was pretty sure that we were now beneath the level of the outside plain.
Time stretched on and I heard the heavy breathing of the Easterners caused by more exertion than they were used to and the fear that any dark, seemingly endless, corridor would evoke.
I had problems of my own. The darkness wasn’t so bad, but the confined quarters of the narrow tunnel were proving a bit much to handle.
My face was beaded with sweat and it was only pride that kept me sternly modulating my breathing from being as heavy sounding as those around me. This place was like a prison all over again, but there at least I’d had a window.
A soft hand felt at my front before wondering to the side and claiming my free hand in a consoling grip. I knew shame in that moment that this woman knew my weakness.
I tugged on my hand, but she wouldn’t let go. She kept leading me on through the darkness and obediently I followed feeling the internal pressure I was under abate some in terms of severity.
One of the Easterners cried out in semi-hysteria, “Does this tunnel never end? We’ve been walking for hours!”
“Pipe down you gutless coward, Weston. The first of the rooms is just ahead and we’ve only been walking for a little over an hour.” Came Lawrence’s perturbed voice in reply to the other party member.
Up ahead I saw light and I had to fight to avoid hastening toward it. One of the Easterners though did not and slipping he fell headlong down several steps. The sounds of his fall were painful to hear and his resulting hysterical cries seemed partly justified, even if he did sound like a little girl.
The column came to a halt as we waited for those in the front to pick up the moaning form of the tunnel’s first victim. I felt Christy turn and then she was wiping at my face with a cloth.
As the built-up evidence of my tension was wiped away I wondered at her actions and then it dawned on me what she was up to. She was trying to help me save face by removing the physical evidence of my fear for small spaces.
Tingles shot throughout me as she finished up and not being able to resist the temptation my hands settled about her waist possessively and brought her the last little distance to me until she was pressed fully up against me in the darkness. I felt her breathing pick up in rhythm, but that was all.
Her hands settled on my shoulders and it seemed as though she waited in expectation for me to do more. I felt more sweat pop free on my brow, but it wasn’t from the smallness of the space.
I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t take the innocence that I wanted so desperately from off her lips.
I let go of her and silently urged her to move away. I would’ve stepped back from her, but I had no room to do so.
She didn’t move away and once again the cloth lifted and wiped the fresh sweat away. She stepped back and I breathed in a shaky breath, only to have my breath halt as she stepped forward and landed a blind peck to the side of my face.
She turned away then and the column started out again. My free hand rose to feel at my cheek that seemed to burn at where her lips had contacted it.
Her innocent passion for me was beyond enticing. How was I going to keep her at arm’s length, when it was clear she wanted to be within the reach of them?
*****
Christy felt like her face was ten shades of red and it was with gratefulness for the darkness of the tunnel that she moved on down its cool interior. Why had she done that?
He’d been going to kiss her and then he hadn’t and it…….it had simply been too much. One of her chief self-confessed faults in life was her tendency to be impulsive, but right now her greatest peeve with herself was that she had missed his lips and kissed him on the cheek like some doting aunt to a nephew!
Her flushed face only grew more intense, as what it would have been like to have been kissed with the passion the man behind her manifested for her would have been like to experience. With dread she viewed the approaching end of the tunnel that would reveal her flushed countenance.
The column moved on and with reluctance she stepped into the lighted room beyond the tunnel. With a stunned gasp she forgot her embarrassment as she gazed on the room and the view beyond it.
Before her was a wall of windows of which many were broken and cracked. It was through these cracked and missing panes of glass that the wind at their backs while in the downward stepping tunnel now disappeared out through.
It took a moment and a few steps closer to the wall of light to realize the view she was afforded was out over the side of a canyon. This room was built as an overlook of a vast canyon system that lay off in the distance lower than the elevation of this high sided canyon wall. Instantly she wanted a house someday that had a secretive overlook like this.
She glanced to the side and speculatively regarded the man, who was the object of all her burgeoning emotions of desire.
*****
Blinking away my astonishment of the hidden location of this room’s expansive view I turned my head to Christy in response to her staring at me. She had an impish smile that gave her a mysterious edge I wasn’t too sure about.
“What?” I asked uncertainly.
“From what I’ve gathered from overhearing the others is that the builders of this place are some of your ancestors. Is that right?”
“Apparently.” I conceded not sure where her questioning was headed.
Her smile only turned more mysterious as it took on a calculating aspect, “Well then, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to construct such a place seeing as it is in your blood to know about how to go about it.”
“What?” I asked completely puzzled now.
Smiling she turned away choosing to leave me in the dark.
“Grand Papa!” She exclaimed out as the smile left her face.
I watched, as she ran to encircle an elderly man with her arms, who looked worn down both within and without. His time wrinkled hands clasped tightly around his granddaughter’s back as he held her close to him fiercely.
I saw a tear pass down his cheek and I knew my expanding role of sudden nobility of character would have to grow some more. How was I going to get an old man and his granddaughter to safety though?
That indeed was the question. The old man’s piercing blue eyes opened to regard me and for a moment I felt my soul searched by him.
His searing glance fell from my face to the metallic bracelets about my wrists. His gaze swung up to me and to my surprise I saw him mouth out, “I can get you free of those.”
He imperceptibly hugged his granddaughter tighter and the message was clear. I dipped my head in acknowledgment of granting his request of saving the life of what was obviously his most treasured possession in the world.
“Well now that we’ve got all the niceties of long-lost greeting behind us, Cornelius, it’s time to get back to work.” Lawrence said with smugness that had me wanting to smash his teeth through the back of his skull.
Cornelius turned around somewhat arthritically to face Lawrence and the others who were at his back, “You cursed overgrown parasite of a man sized flea! How dare you bring my granddaughter here like this!”
Tightlipped Lawrence responded, “Well she is here and Cornelius, you’d better realize what is at stake. Your calculations had better be right, because her life depends on it.”
“Why? What you mean by that?” Cornelius huffed out.
“She’s going on the expedition so it’s to your designated advantage to ensure the vessel flies as is intended.”
“Why you lily livered piece…….”
Lawrence drew out the small device that rendered only pain and said, “Or I can engage this now and you can watch her brain fry. What’s it going to be?”
Cornelius tightly responded with, “The vessel is as ready as I can make it. All we need yet is him to take it wherever it is you want the darn thing to go.”
“Just what is it I’m supposed to do?” I asked cutting into the drama of the moment.
With a sardonic laugh the old man turned to me and said, “Why you’re going to fly the cursed contraption. How are your reflexes boy?”
I stared at Cornelius dry mouthed. Fly the vessel. Looking to Lawrence I said, “I thought you said all I had to do was activate something.”
Lawrence was studying Cornelius closely as he answered me with, “Yes, that was my understanding as well. What has changed Cornelius?”
Cornelius was shaking his head, “It won’t work without an active presence at the controls. No, he’s going to have to fly it or the cursed thing is not going anywhere.”
I started to protest, but Cornelius gestured to me and said, “Come here boy.”
He shuffled off to where moisture dripped from the ceiling to puddle on the floor of the room.
Lawrence spoke in what sounded like rising hysteria, “Cornelius, I brought with me the most qualified people in the country to fly this vessel and you’re telling me that this two bit gunslinger is better qualified?”
“Gunslinger you say! That’s good! It’s all about reflexes and I bet his are better than any of these other namby-pamby’s I see that you brought with you.”
I stopped walking as Cornelius turned to me and then pointed to the fast drip of water falling from the ceiling to repetitively splat into a puddle on the floor.
“All right now, hold your hand like this and try to dodge it in and out between the drops without getting wet.”
I looked away from him to the fast drips of water falling from the ceiling. I held my hand the way he had instructed and getting a feel for the rhythm I dodged my hand forward and back.
“Now the other hand.” Cornelius ordered gruffly.
I did as requested and my left hand came away as devoid of moisture as my right hand had been.
“Well Lawrence have you seen enough?” Cornelius challenged.
Lawrence nodded slowly and Cornelius burst out with, “Good! Now let’s get this mission done and over with so my granddaughter can be back within the safety of civilization and away from the likes of you and your ilk!"
“It will be as you say Cornelius once this mission proves successful.” Lawrence affirmed.
Cornelius was facing away from the others and both I and Christy saw him roll his eyes at the obvious lie on Lawrence’s part.
I rather liked the old man’s spirit and I fell in along behind him as he trundled down another passageway.
The passageway soon ended in a cavernous room dominated by a sleek looking object of metallic design. The room was highlighted by skylights overhead and in awe I studied the gleaming craft before me.
“Pretty isn’t it my boy?”
I nodded.
“Well come along. We haven’t much time to familiarize you with it before you’re going to have to fly it to who knows where for who knows what.”
Feeling nervous anxiety threaten to overwhelm all thought I immediately followed Cornelius up the gang way that led into the vessel. Lights and gadgets beyond comprehension were lit up all around in a dizzying display of advancements far beyond me.
“Now you’ll sit up here.” Cornelius said indicating one of two chairs that lay towards the front of the vessel’s forward windows.
Feeling like my heartbeat was off rhythm I sat down and looked helplessly about as to what to do. Strangely none of the buttons and levers that dominated the rest of the ship were around me. All I saw were two grips before me.
“Yes, take a hold of them and let’s see what happens.” Cornelius affirmed, as if reading my mind.
I leaned forward and my hands closed around the supple material of the two rods that projected out from the front dash. Lights came to life all over the windows before me and even the dash.
“Fascinating! Truly fascinating the way your ancestors designed their technology. Now I’ve come to believe in my research that for the pilot the act of flying the ship is almost entirely a mental exercise. A mental exercise that however borrows over what abilities you have in the physical. Now I want you to concentrate on floating the vessel a foot up off the floor.”
I did and there was a loud clang followed by an abrupt jolt as the ship resettled back onto the ground roughly. Looking back I saw that it had been the gangway falling away from the ship that had startled me.
Looking to Lawrence I saw a man extremely happy in a way that seemed distasteful somehow. Beaming from ear to ear he rubbed his hands together and said, “We leave in the morning! See that these three are locked away and that they are well fed. We want them to be ready for the trials of the journey ahead.”
I was hustled along with Christy and her grandfather down and out of the ship to be enclosed in a small room with a sturdy looking door.