The Man From Forever

My chief. “Were you there?”

“Yes.”

Yes. The word had a life and strength of its own. It bore its way into her, but she gave no thought to trying to fight it. “Where?” she asked as if that mattered. “Where were you?”

Instead of pointing at the spot where she understood the peace tent had been, he indicated a rocky bluff maybe a quarter of a mile away. “The army said we were to stay in our camps, but we didn’t.”

What did you see, Loka? On that spring morning in 1873, what did you hear? Instead of giving voice to the questions pounding at her, she waited him out. It seemed as if he were drawing into himself, looking for the memory so he could spread it out in front of them. Looking up at him with the vast sky behind him and the wind and birds the only sounds in this universe they shared, she felt herself losing whatever grip she still had on the world she’d always known.

“The warmth felt good on my back. Cho-ocks and Keintepoos said that soon we would be able to move into the mountains because the snow was almost gone. I’d come with my brother and father and two cousins. We hid behind the rocks—the army men were too stupid to know where to look for us.”

With every word, his voice sounded less raw and unused. There was music to it, a deep drumbeat that pulsed around and into her. She held on to the sound, the words, knew nothing except him and what he was telling her.

“Keintepoos came armed to the peace talk. He and Ha-kar-Jim had already decided what they were to do.”

“Keintepoos? Ha-kar-Jim?”

“My chief and the brave your ancestor knew as Hooker Jim.”

The Modoc chief. The man who’d killed her great-great-grandfather. She remembered a little about Hooker Jim, enough to know that the young Modoc had been almost single-handedly responsible for turning a tense situation into war. “Your chief listened to Hook—to Ha-kar-Jim? Loka, he was a killer. He murdered innocent settlers.”

“Only after the army burned our winter village.”

They weren’t going to get anywhere arguing over who carried the greatest blame. “I’m sorry that happened,” she whispered.

“So am I.”

His tone carried a deep regret, making her wonder if he understood that that single act had eventually brought about his people’s defeat. “The killing that took place here… Why didn’t you try to stop it?” she asked.

“Stop? It was my chief’s decision. I would not argue with him.”

“But you knew he was wrong, didn’t you? I mean, it’s insane to think that killing a general would make the army scatter.”

“Insane?” He frowned, then looked away as if tired of this conversation. “I tell you this, Tory Kent. Our children’s bellies were empty. Our women cried themselves to sleep. A warrior does not close his ears to those cries. Cho-ocks said that an army without its leader will leave. We believed because we had nothing else to believe in.”

Swayed by the force of his speech, she swore she could hear those despairing women, see the look of hunger in children’s eyes. “Cho-ocks? Who was he?” she asked when it didn’t really matter.”

“Our shaman.”

Curly Headed Doctor, at least that’s what the soldiers and settlers had called him. “I—I read that he tried to protect the stronghold with a red rope. Did you really think that would stop an army?”

“You do not understand,” he said forcefully. “Cho-ocks was a powerful shaman.”

Not powerful enough, she thought, but didn’t risk his anger by saying anything. How could she be arguing religious theory with a primitive? With someone who couldn’t possibly exist, or be who he said he was? She wanted to look over at her car and assure herself that she hadn’t fallen into some kind of a time warp, but would gazing at a hunk of metal make any difference?

“You do not believe me. You think Cho-ocks was like your leaders—weak. But you are wrong.”

“I didn’t say—what’s happening here? Damn it, what’s going on?”

He laughed at her outburst, the sound hard and filled with something that might be hate, but she thought went further, deeper. Frightened by the intensity of his emotions, she took a backward step with the half-formed thought that she needed to run.

He stopped her by planting himself between her and freedom. He’d done that before, and she remembered the mix of fear and anticipation that had filled her. The same emotions coursed through her, leaving her without the strength to do anything except fight them—and him.

“What are you?” he demanded. “Are you a shaman? Why did you end my forever sleep? Why?”

“Forever sleep? What are you talking about?”

Without doing more than shifting his weight from his left hip to his right, he put an end to her outburst. She waited, not wanting to hear what he had to say but sensing that this was why he’d approached her. “I do not belong here. This is not my time. But you walked onto this land, and somehow you reached me.”

“Not—your time?”

“I do not want to be here. I want back my forever sleep.”

A deep-felt melancholy rode his words. Irrationally, she wanted to fling it away and gift him with something to make him smile. “But you have destroyed that,” he continued before she could think what she possibly might say. “And now I know why.”

“You—you’re not saying you were dead? Please don’t try to make me believe that.”

“How little you know! Death or life. That is all your people understand. But there is more. The magic of a great shaman.”

Insane. Insane. But no matter how many times the words echoed inside her, she knew she’d never say them. Unbelievably aware of his presence, she waited for him to continue. “I was undead but not part of this time. I slept, the endless sleep of one who has taken the midnight medicine. It was what I wanted.”

“Midnight medicine? What—”

“And then you came.” Although the day was rapidly growing brighter, his eyes seemed to be getting even darker than they’d been at the beginning. “With his blood flowing in your veins, you stepped on Maklaks land and robbed me of my peace.”

He’d been in some kind of suspended animation; was that what he was trying to tell her? The logical part of her mind screamed at her to tell him he was crazy for saying this, but she had no explanation for what and who he was—none that made any more sense than the explanation he’d just given her. Despite her undiminished fear of him, excitement began building inside her. It left her both weak and unbelievably strong. She was an anthropologist, a trained professional dedicated to unveiling the mysteries of the past.

This morning she stood face-to-face with the past.

She didn’t realize her mouth had gaped open until he pressed the flat of his hand against it. “Stop! You will not laugh at me!”