Blackfeather
17 Alive
I COUGHED AND CHOKED, gasping for breath. Strong arms went around me and held me. I was disoriented as I felt the soft mattress. Kyle was holding me. I grabbed hold of him and squeezed with all my strength.
“You’re back!” he said. He rocked me back and forth.
“Well, I guess that worked,” Pa said as he came into the room. Moms were right behind him.
“What worked?” I asked. Kyle reached toward me and lifted a necklace and a black feather off my chest. I looked down noticing my tits were barely covered by the sheet. “Teeth?”
“Canines from the one you shot and the one Kyle shot,” Pa confirmed.
“You shot it? I thought I was dead. I thought I was never coming back. What day is it?”
“Wednesday,” Mom Mar said, pushing Kyle out of the way and hugging me. “You had a bit of a concussion, but mostly you’ve been fighting the fever from infection. Doc Hawkins shot you full of antibiotics and said you’d come around soon.”
“I feel… My throat hurts.” I complained. Same feeling I’d had for the past four months as I worked to get Miranda’s throat unbent. Won’t it ever go away? Pa got to me and kissed me on the head and Mom Ash gave me a hug and touched my neck. I flinched. Mom Mar grabbed the mirror off my dressing table. She held it up to me and pulled away a gauze bandage. I saw a pair of angry red rips along my throat. They were closed but swollen.
“She was already dead when she hit you,” Pa said. “Fortunately, her teeth just gouged you but she wasn’t biting. They tested the body for rabies Monday and it was clean, so we just need to get you past the infection.”
“Those teeth had your blood on them, Ramie,” Kyle said. “Merv Longsteer came out and gave you a purifying ritual. That’s the feather. He made the necklace and said there was a spirit in you that needed to go home.” I got dizzy. I wasn’t dead. She could have ripped my throat open just from her momentum.
“Aubrey?” I asked.
“She went to school this morning to get our assignments and explain where we’d all been this week,” Kyle said. “She hasn’t left your side since we brought you home from the doctor.”
“Neither have you,” Mom Ash said. “Ramie, your pa and I were way too far away and at a bad angle to get a shot. Luckily your brother was in better position. We got you to the doctor and he told us to just keep ladling broth into you and make sure you woke up every couple of hours. Your little brother made rabbit stew that he shared with you, even though I know he made it for Caitlin. That fever really knocked you out.”
I was hungry as the dickens but too weak and shaky to do anything but eat in bed and lie back exhausted. I wanted to see my horses but when the kids came in to hug me they assured me the horses were fine. They’d been out on the four-wheeler ‘patrolling.’ They were both hoping for a chance to shoot a wolf. Mom Ash tossed me a T-shirt so I could sit up in bed without exposing myself. That was the least of my problems.
Kyle sat with me while we waited for Aubrey to get back from school.
“She’ll probably be a little late. She hasn’t been home all week and I’m sure her folks will want an explanation as to why she thinks she’s spending Thanksgiving weekend here. I heard Pa on the phone, though, inviting her parents out for Thanksgiving with us all. One of us was always here with you, Ramie. Always.”
“You still got my back, brother.” He held my hand as I gathered my thoughts. “Kyle, you said I woke up every couple of hours. Did you notice… was there anything different about me?” I asked.
“Yeah, you were kind of delirious. Once though… It’s why Pa called Merv. It was pretty late last night. Aubrey was on the bed with you and I was sitting here in the chair. We had a movie playing on the laptop. All of a sudden, we realized you were watching it. I hit the panic button on the 2-way and Moms and Pa were out here in less than a minute. All that time you were staring at the laptop and then at me and then at Aubrey. When Moms and Pa came rushing in you looked like you were in a flat-out panic. You started to hyperventilate and then passed out.”
“You wouldn’t believe what happened. I was traveling,” I whispered. At least my voice hadn’t suffered as much as Miranda’s. “I was gone for months, Kyle. Right at the beginning, Miranda threw a fit and all of a sudden, I was alone in her body. She wasn’t there. She was gone for over two months. When she suddenly snapped back into her body, she was frightened out of her wits. I managed to see the memory and saw you and Aubrey. That was the first I knew I was alive.”
Tears were leaking out of my eyes. My precious little brother kept holding me in his arms.
“Pa pulled me aside and said that he’d once been sick in a fever and had been traveling for several months. He guessed you might be, too. He hoped your host hadn’t died. But last night, after we saw the panic attack, he decided to call Merv.”
“Bet that freaked Aubrey out,” I snorted.
“She was gone when he got here this morning. He strung the teeth and beads and when he put them around your neck, your sheet slipped and I think he saw your boobs.”
“Whatever,” I laughed. “He’s a doctor-like.”
“Yeah, but… I sorta saw ’em, too. It was an accident and I’m sorry, but they were there and I saw, and I had to tell you so you wouldn’t think I was sneaking…” I laughed and pulled the sheet down to my waist. Of course, I had a T-shirt on now. Still, you could see the points of my nipples pretty clearly through it.
“Kyle, there ain’t much there to see so don’t worry about it. Not compared to Aubrey, for God’s sake. Speaking of which, you can go back and sleep in your own room tonight. You don’t have to sit up with me.”
“I’m not just going to go sneak off and make love to Aubrey,” he said indignantly.
“I said you could go. I didn’t say she could. I think she still owes me part of my birthday present.” We laughed. I heard a car pull up and figured that might be her. “Kyle, one thing. When you travel next, Miranda and Katie are renting a room in St. Joseph, Missouri. I’m disguised as a man traveling with his cute young wife. We’re traders. If there’s any way you can do it, come and get us. Okay? It’s been really hard.”
Aubrey entered the room with a squeal and dropped books on the floor as she rushed to me. I hugged that girl so hard the air swooshed out of her lungs. We were both laughing and crying and kissing each other. Kyle pushed his chair back away from us but I reached out and grabbed his hand before he could get away. In a second, I felt Aubrey’s hand with mine.
“I was so worried about you, Ramie!” Aubrey cried. “Are you really going to be okay now?”
“I’m back in the land of the living,” I said. “And I have my two favorite people in the world by my side. I know you were both here while I was fevered. Thank you both for loving me. Right now, before dinner, I’m going to go take a shower.” Aubrey started to protest. “I’m fine, honey, but I feel like I’ve got a couple months of stink on me.” I reached for my cell phone and flicked to the alarm clock. “I’m going to shower for 25 minutes,” I said, showing them the time I’d set on the phone. “If you rush now, that gives you thirty minutes to fuck like bunnies before I’m ready to go up for dinner. But you better get started now!”
“But Ramie, I should shower with you and make sure you’re okay,” Aubrey said.
“Later. I’m giving you two half an hour. I expect to have you all night, sweetie!”
Making love with Aubrey was sweet and gentle. We lay in bed for a long time just holding and kissing—saying how much we loved each other. She found my special places with her fingers and with her tongue. I loved her and when I went down on her I couldn’t help but compare her neatly trimmed hair to Katie’s wild bush. Aubrey was fresh and clean and smelled a little of Ivory soap. When she came, she flooded my mouth with her juices and I lapped her up like I was starving.
But when we’d made love, we just lay there and held each other. We whispered as she caught me up more on what had gone on for the past five days. I petted her bottom and held her close against me. And finally, Aubrey got around to telling me what was really on her mind—the sudden waking and panic of the night before. I tried to pass it off as just being my fever playing tricks, but Aubrey wasn’t buying it.
“Ramie, honey, you looked like you’d just been caught at something. You kept looking at Kyle and then at me and then back,” she said. “Ramie, are you sleeping with Kyle?” What? Oh shit!
“No! God, Aubrey! He’s my brother. I love him like I love myself, but not to fuck him.”
“You don’t need to act like he’d be terrible. I mean he’s a pretty damn good fuck.”
“But he’s my brother. I admit that sometimes… remember when I told you I sometimes fantasized that you and me were both doing Stan Armitage?”
“Don’t tell me you think about both of us doing Kyle!” Aubrey giggled.
“Not exactly,” I moaned. “Mostly I think about him and me doing you together.”
“Oh. Oh!” She grabbed my hand and pulled it down to her pussy where I felt a hot flood of new juices.
“That’s a lot different than me ever doing him.”
“But why, Ramie? I think I could take knowing you were intimate with each other as long as you didn’t leave me out or lie to me about it. I mean, I know the laws and social stigma and all. But… I mean, look at Mary Beth and Cole. Technically, they are too closely related to be lovers, too.”
“There’s a huge difference, Aubrey. Mary Beth and Cole lived half a mile away from each other and were two years different in age. She never had any school classes with him. She wasn’t raised living across the hall from him like Kyle and me. I don’t think she’d ever smelled one of Pa’s farts until after they were lovers. If she had they’d probably never got together!” We started laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe. That evolved into tickling each other and those tickling fingers found some places that really liked to be tickled and neither one of us could hold back our scream when we came. I reflexively glanced toward the window to make sure it was closed. I was positive I’d heard the raven in the back of my mind.
“Okay,” Aubrey said as we finally settled down. “Just, if it ever happens to come to that, please be honest with me. I don’t want to lose either one of you. But I know there is something between the two of you that you share and I don’t. Maybe I can’t. But I hope you’ll love me enough and trust me enough to tell me what it is.”
Will that day ever come? Will Kyle and I be able to tell her we are time travelers?
Mom Mar pronounced me healthy after all the turkey I put away at Thanksgiving dinner. Kyle and I went out to saddle Pooky and Dado. Aubrey went home with her parents with the promise that she would be back on Friday ‘to study.’ Kyle left me with the horses for a few minutes and when he got back, he handed me my rifle.
“I cleaned it while I was sitting with you. Should be all set. That was a hell of a shot you made,” he said.
“I can hardly remember it; things happened so fast. How’s the horse? That was Lucky, wasn’t it?” I asked as we started toward the pasture. The horses were all down toward the river.
“Yeah. He had a couple bites. There was no question he was fighting for his life. Arlen Logan from Fish and Game came out to verify it was a predator kill. When he heard we had wolves, he left immediately and ran out. He wasn’t happy about Pa pulling the canines, but when he saw the bite on your neck, he just nodded and let it go. He took the carcasses with him, first to test for rabies and then to give to the University for study.” Kyle seemed to run down while we went to check on the herd. I got up beside Lucky and looked at the bite on his rump.
“You sure earned your name, didn’t you old boy? I hope you kicked him a good one before I got there.” I remounted and we rode over toward where the action had been. I could see where I’d been and where Lucky had been when I shot the male that was attacking him. I could see the ridge right above me where the female jumped at me.
“Arlen says that the male weighed over 180 and the female nearly 170,” Kyle said as we rode. “They want to check them to see if there’s a species mutation. Don’t much see a Canadian wolf over 150.”
“Kyle, where were you when you bagged that she-wolf?” I asked.
“Oh. Back over there, I guess.” He waved vaguely behind us.
“Wait. Take me to exactly where you took the shot,” I demanded. He looked at me and we rode back a ways.
“I was coming up from the river. I guess I was right about here,” he said. I dismounted and grabbed my rifle from the scabbard. I sighted up along the ridge where I’d made a pretty damned good hundred-yard shot.
“Kyle. It’s gotta be 200 yards up there. If you’d missed you coulda killed me!” I heard him sniff and turned to see tears in his eyes. He reached out and touched my neck softly.
“Ramie, if I’da missed, you’d have been dead anyway.”
It was all-out tears then. Kyle grabbed hold of me and just cried on my shoulder and I wept because through it all, my brother had my back.
“Don’t… Don’t get so far away again, Ramie. I was so scared. If that old raven hadn’t made the wolf look up just then, I might have missed. I hit her right under the chin. I swear that old bird was trying to protect you. Ramie, I’d die if something happened to you. Please don’t ever do that again.”
I looked back up toward where I’d been just in time to see a raven swoop in and settle on the ridge.
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