Yelloweye
14
The Aftermath
Shale Oil Company
IN A CLOSED BOARD MEETING of Shale Oil Company, Ron Grisholm, president of the company, had just delivered his statement of intent to rebuild the pseudo-fracking sites and continue prospecting for oil. The board members were heads-down examining the report and proposal.
“I don’t see how we can invest like that with the stock in the toilet, Ron. Have you got it all in the proposal here?” one of the board members asked.
“There is no sense even reading the paper. The short of it is that we show these terrorists that they can’t stop America. I’ll drain every drop of oil on the continent if I have to squeeze the earth’s tit with my own hands,” Grisholm declared.
There was a low growl. Heads turned to see a giant silver wolf leap to the board table. He stalked down the length of the table while board members scrambled back and Grisholm struggled to get a pistol from his shoulder harness. Pulling it free, he swung toward the wolf in time to meet the claws that ripped out his throat. The body jerked as it landed back in its chair, eyes wide but unseeing.
The wolf shook the blood from his massive paw and turned to stalk back down the length of the table. He paused to look each stricken board member in the eye.
“I vote no,” the first said, raising his hand as the wolf stared him down. At each board member where he stopped, the answer was the same. “I vote no.” At the end of the table, the wolf sprang and disappeared through the door of the boardroom.
No one knew where the wolf came from, nor where it went.
Over the course of the next few months, it was revealed that the former president of the corporation—‘acting alone and without the consent of the board’, of course—had suppressed environmental studies that revealed the Yellowstone location was not stable and that the operation would have an adverse effect on both the ecology and tourism.
The information was ‘shocking’ and needed to be ‘investigated at the highest levels’ according to news reports. The Interior Department and USDA both rescinded all energy exploration permits on Federal lands. Both Forest Service and Park Service funding were increased.
A new company, Native Energy Management, Inc., owned by a consortium of Native American tribes and funded by Gold Watch Energy Foundation, purchased a controlling interest in Shale Oil Company at pennies a share. By the time they took the company over, it was a skeleton of the original company and the new owners began transforming it into a research facility to explore earth-friendly energy solutions. Its work would continue for many years.
Attacks were not limited to Shale Oil, nor even to U.S. soil. Periodically, drums could be heard rumbling like thunder but apparently without source. People paused to listen.
An Arabian prince was killed in a stampede of his own horses. A Japanese magnate was killed by a rare komodo dragon. Two South African mine owners were caught in a freak collapse. Each had recently declared their intentions to expand operations that many termed raping Mother Earth.
Park authorities joined by forensic analysts combed the Yellowstone Grizzly Village site and turned up no evidence of habitation either at the village or at the company installation. Investigation of the installation site was hampered by the unpredictable venting of the new geyser. On some days, it went the entire day without erupting. On others, a burst would follow the one before by only a few minutes. It was dangerous to be too close to the vent when it erupted as the ground shifted and was unstable.
An investigation of the mountainside facing the valley revealed little. There was a cave that had previously been uncharted, but there was no sign that anything had inhabited it for hundreds of years. Researchers did, however, note that the cave had unique acoustic properties.
The Family
The Alexander Bell Ranch and LK Stables returned to a semblance of normal as well. With the additional acreage made available through Cole’s purchase of the Calhoun spread, he balanced the number of cattle that he could maintain without leasing the National Forest property on Centennial Ridge. That also reduced the number of men needed to ride herd, even though it increased the dry food requirement. Kyle and Ramie’s horses thrived on their allotted pasturage.
The wounds never quite healed. But the two unusual families sought and received solace in the arms of their lovers. The babies continued to grow and reaffirm everyone’s hopes for the future.
“I hope it’s twins,” Kyle said. Ramie looked at him aghast. “We could use more hands on the ranch,” he continued innocently. Ramie slugged him in the shoulder a little harder than she intended to.
“When are we going to tell the family?” Aubrey asked. “Moms and Pa will be so excited to hear they’ll be grandparents again.”
“I think it’s a little early, don’t you?” Ramie said. “I only missed one period.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Aubrey admitted. “I missed eighteen of them.” The three laughed.
“Aubs, honey? Is it all right? I never meant to get pregnant,” Ramie said, looking at her wife and husband/brother.
“Yeah, right,” Aubrey said. “Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t you. Miranda?”
“What is it, sweetheart,” the bright voice came from Ramie’s lips.
“When was my darling wife supposed to have her implant replaced?” Aubrey answered sweetly.
“Uh… I… well… I don’t keep track of things like that,” Miranda said.
“I forgot all about my implant!” Ramie said. “Demon Miranda, we are going to have a long talk.”
“Can we do it while making love to our husband and wife?” the voice of her ancestor said.
“Are you really upset, Laramie?” Jason asked softly through Kyle. Ramie looked into his eyes and saw both her husbands clearly.
“I’m a little scared,” she said softly. “But you know I love all four of you and if you can be happy for me, I’ll be overjoyed.”
On Labor Day, the family trekked to the family burial site and Cole placed two plain white marble slabs, skipping a row where his own would lie with those of his wives. He recited the names for each of the seven rows of stones, starting with Theresa Ranae Bell and White Horse. The family, much to Miranda’s embarrassment, had decided to add stones for Miranda and Jason to mark their remembrance. They insisted that they weren’t dead, but Cole explained that it was so the family would know their lineage, not to mark their resting place. None of the stones had names on them. Miranda then insisted that they add a stone for her precious Katie.
The second row had the stones of Laramie Wyoming Bell, Kyle Redtail Wardlaw, Kat Tangeman, and Caitlin Forster. Cole had added Caitlin’s stone, even though she was buried in the pauper’s field at Greenlawn, when he found out she was the daughter of Jason and Katie.
The fifth row had only Cole’s father’s stone. His mother, her brother and his wife, all lived together now and had asked that they be laid next to Earl Bell as a single family and single generation. Cole and Mary Beth still prayed that time would be far away.
The sixth row was empty. One day, Cole, Mary Beth, and Ashley would lie there.
“And here we mark the passing of our children, Caitlin Forster Bell and Philemon Morgan Bell. Their spirits continue to guard our land as they have protected it with their lives,” Cole intoned. He closed the big Bible. “My children, I will love you till the day I die. You were the bravest of us all.”
A wolf howled.
It was joined by the screech of a hawk, the cawing of a raven, and the hooting of an owl.
Ramie jammed her feet into her boots and strapped her Colt to her waist as she ran toward the door of the bunkhouse ignoring the fact that all she wore was a t-shirt. Kyle had his Remington in hand as he followed her out in his boxers. Aubrey snatched up the babies and held them to her breast, wrapping a robe around them all as she followed her family.
Cole, Mary Beth, and Ashley emerged from the big house facing the younger generation across the broad yard. His Smith & Wessons hung from his hips. Ashley held a rifle and Mary Beth a shotgun.
Between the big house and the bunkhouse, in the area where Ramie had once met the wolf pack, a different congregation of animals had gathered. Redtail, Blackfeather, and Yelloweye stood on the ground next to Wolf. Behind them a great grizzly bear stood on his hind legs and bellowed. A moose stood next and beside him an elk whose points could not be counted. Around the yard sat animals of nearly every species of mammal and bird. From among them, two horses stepped forward—paint draft horses—and between them walked three people carrying three little children.
The only one any of them recognized was the tattooed woman with the wolf’s heads on her shoulders.
“It’s us,” the young man said. “We’d like to come home.”
Mary Beth and Ashley ran to their children and hugged them.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know you?” Mary Beth said. “You might not look like Phile, but I see him in your eyes.”
“It’s going to take some getting used to you looking like this,” Ashley said. “But I am so happy to have you back.”
“Is this my grandchild?” Cole asked holding his arms out to Mandy. She presented the little boy to him. Cole took the child and put his arm around Mandy, hugging her to him. “I can never thank you enough for what you did for my children,” he said.
“Meet Grandma Mar, Beth Ann,” the young man said holding her out to Mary Beth. “This is my… Phile’s baby with Mandy.”
“And you meet Grandma Ash, Avis,” the other young woman said. “She’s the youngest of the three. I got started late because there was so much going on. She’s my… Wolf Riding Woman’s baby with Phile.”
“But…” Ashley started.
“Yes,” Mandy said as Cole continued to hold his grandson. Colin came from the womb you knew as Caitlin’s, fathered by Wolf Rising. He’s the oldest.”
“I think we have a lot of ground to cover and we don’t need to do it all out here,” Ashley said. “Let’s get you inside and warm and find beds for you all.”
Cole turned to the animals that had accompanied them and fixed his eyes on Redtail. “Thank you for bringing my children back to me.” The hawk bobbed his head once and lifted into the air. They heard his screech in the distance. It tugged at Cole’s heart. The other animals began to retreat and once they were away from the yard lights, they seemed to fade away.
The old one-eyed raven hopped over toward Ramie and Kyle and bobbed his head.
“Thank you, Blackfeather,” Ramie whispered. The bird hopped and fluttered until he landed on Aubrey’s shoulder and looked down at her babies. Theresa, the oldest, reached up to pet the bird. Kyle thought he looked embarrassed by the child’s show of affection. Blackfeather made a few soft calls and then launched himself into the night air.
The owl lifted himself up and the boy—Phile? Wolf Rising?—held an arm out for him to land on.
“When you call, we will be ready,” he said. The owl gave a soft hoot and launched into the air.
That left only the family standing in the yard holding each other with Bells and Bows looking on. There was a soft chuffing and everyone turned to face Wolf, the massive silver protowolf. He looked at the young woman and her child then turned his eyes on Ramie. She felt him penetrate her mind and brought her head up to gaze at the full moon.
“My land,” she said in a voice that was not her own. “My pack.” The wolf threw back his head and howled and then bounded off into the night.
“We saw you die,” Ashley whispered again. Everyone had been in bed when Wolf announced their presence so the family had made the first priority to make sure everyone had a place to sleep, was fed, and was warm. The next day, however, no work was getting done on the ranch. All fourteen gathered in the family room where there were places for everyone to sit and the babies could all get to know each other.
“Yeah. That sucked bigtime,” Phile said.
“Trust you to make it succinct,” Caitlin laughed. She sobered quickly. “It hurt like hell.”
“But this is you in what you called your other time bodies?” Cole said. “I can see you and recognize you, but you are definitely different.”
“It’s different even to us,” Phile said. “Yelloweye wasn’t clear about it. As much as we can tell, the old ones didn’t want to take a chance that any of us would be recognized again. Somehow when we jumped into the stampede to remove the bodies and jumped back, we got welded together. It was only us when we got back. But we’re not the same as either Phile and Caitlin or as Wolf Rising and Wolf Riding Woman. For example, we’re a lot taller than in Oxėse, but not as tall as in now-time.”
“These are definitely my now-time boobs,” Caitlin said offering one to her daughter. “I didn’t have much up top in before-time.”
“But it’s you? It is you, isn’t it, Caitlin?” Ashley pled.
“If you mean the crazy brat who didn’t become a pain until she was eight, yeah. That would be me,” she laughed. “It’s different, though. It’s like half of me is missing.”
“Only it’s still sort of there,” Phile said. Caitlin nodded. “Things like ham and eggs are familiar to me, but still a new experience for this body.” The boy took a deep breath. “Moms. Pa. Phile and Caitlin are dead.” He paused and sniffed a little. “I can still feel it. I’ve got all of Phile’s memories. I’ve got everything he ever felt or said or did in here,” he said pointing to his head. “But there’s no input coming from him. When I talk to myself, I just get answered by his memories.”
“It’s like my senses have been cut in half,” Caitlin added. “I only have this one body instead of two. Even when I’m holding Colin or Avis to my breast and they suck away, there’s a piece of me that longs for her to feel it, but those nerves aren’t connected any longer. I feel through these nerves instead.” It was hard to explain and Caitlin could feel tears in her eyes. Mandy reached over and stroked her cheek. “It’s like having had a part of me amputated and still experiencing phantom feelings.”
“It will get better, love,” Mandy said.
“Were you changed, too?” Mary Beth asked. She’d scarcely let go of little Beth Ann since breakfast.
“Yeah. Maybe not as much, but I’m different. I lived for a long time in Caitlin and Phile’s heads. When they died, I think a little of them seeped into me as well.” She took Beth Ann from Mary Beth and pulled her shirt down to give the baby her breast. Above the baby, the wolf head tattoo was somehow different than the parents had seen on TV.
“The faces are gone from your tattoo,” Mary Beth said. Mandy nodded.
“It doesn’t fully cover my arms, either. My blood type is different. I look pretty much the same as I did, but I don’t think my genes would be linked to my tribe any longer.” She looked up and seemed to puzzle at something. “There was a time that would have bothered me,” she said. “Now, I’m a wanted woman and if I got arrested, they’d have a hard time proving I was the same person that you saw on TV. I figure that as much as the camera focused on my breasts, there will be wolf tattoos on every native girl in the country in a year or two. I’m past caring what body I have or what blood. As long as I have these two, we will continue to be three spirits in five bodies. Or perhaps we are now five spirits in three bodies. The old ones can sort out how that works.”
Babies got passed around a lot. Grandparents were thrilled to meet the new generation and even the cousins were intrigued. Avis and Katherine were only a week different in age with Colin and Beth Ann bracketing them by three months.
“What about the children you are carrying now?” Everyone gasped and looked at Mary Beth. Phile looked at his wives with one eyebrow cocked. “Come on. I knew you were pregnant when you disappeared and I thought the two of you had run away to pretend you were married somewhere. I can see that you are both pregnant.”
“Well, that’s right,” Mandy said. She kissed Phile on the cheek. “We were going to tell you but hadn’t told Phile yet. This is the man that got us both knocked up again. Genetically, the three on the ground are unchanged. A DNA test would show that they are closely related and share at least one grandparent. The next batch, though, won’t show a relationship that is more than a distant ancestor. I hope that won’t make a difference to you. In our hearts—all of our hearts—we are one family.”
“And how about you, young woman?” Mary Beth continued. Ramie’s head bobbed up when she realized her mother was talking to her.
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Did you think my own daughter could hide her pregnancy from me?” Mary Beth demanded.
“No. We were going to tell you as soon as we confirmed everything. We just figured it out this weekend. Um… I’m pretty sure Miranda is pregnant and Jason is the father.” She smiled brightly.
“Oh really?” Miranda’s voice cut through Ramie.
“No. Miranda and I are pregnant and Kyle and Jason are the father. And Aubrey is the mother. Other mother.” Ramie turned to the kids. “I felt so bad for you guys when I read what you were going through. If we’d known, we might have been able to help. You’d have gotten a ton of advice from Pa, too, if Kyle and I hadn’t acted like they were loco when they told us about time travel. Then you’d have had comfort and help instead of feeling like you were weird. Not that you wouldn’t have still been weird, but we’d all have understood.”
There was a good round of laughter, a sound that had been heard all too seldom in the past year. Ramie went back to playing with Katherine and Avis, letting the two babies touch and explore each other. Cousins.
“How are we going to pass the three of you off here?” Ashley finally joined the conversation. “If we call you Caitlin, Phile, and Mandy, folks will start to question what’s up. You two don’t look like Bells.”
“We’ve had some time to get new identities,” Mandy said. “It was just more work we had to do over the course of the past year plus. All three babies were born in Seattle to Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe. The three of us are second generation Americans with passports and everything. I’m Talia. In Swedish, ‘tala’ is a speaker. We thought that was appropriate. This is Stig. In most Germanic languages, ‘to rise’ translates to some variant of ‘steigen’. Miss Wolf Riding Woman was the hardest to get something for, but in German, ‘riding’ translates to ‘reiten’. We figured Rita was close enough. Right after the birth of their baby, Rita and Stig got divorced and I married him. Divorced, but never separated. So, if you’ll keep us, your new hired hands are Rita, Stig, and Talia Wolfe.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Pa, we need to build another house. Eight adults and five children in the bunkhouse is going to make it crowded. And just wait till it’s eight. Or nine,” he joked, grinning at Ramie.
Caitlin: The Box
I’m placing this last batch of pages at the bottom of the batch you’ve already read, knowing that one day you’ll want the rest of the story and you’ll open the box again. There is so much left to tell you. Mandy convinced us to keep writing the story, even though we were in Oxėse. We’ll have to slip these pages into the box when we get back. But there are some things that are just too important to leave out.
The first thing we needed to do when we got to Oxėse after we ran away from home—well, the first thing after making love with the five of us together again—was to get the village moving on its last migration. Phile and I had been starting each stage and then leaving. We’d meet up with them in a year or so and congratulate them on the move. Of course, Mandy did most of the talking, but we’d really gotten to know some of these folks and it was fun to be with them.
This time, there were nearly a thousand people moving from west of where Cody now is up into the mountains at Yellowstone. It was a longer trek of nearly 100 miles and some of it going into the mountains was pretty rugged. So Phile, Mandy, and I walked with them. We got up to Grizzly Lake, where they set up their village, around the end of the third week of July. We were completely in sync with now-time, but we were still in Oxėse. Of course, the three of us couldn’t wait to get up to the cave where our twins were and where Merv was preparing the big moose hide to stretch across the drum.
“Beloveds,” Mandy said when she had us all in the furs that night, “I have news. I think I’m pregnant.” We totally mobbed her. There wasn’t one of our bodies that didn’t give her an orgasm or two. Of course, I immediately started comparing the tiny bulge that was beginning at my waist. I love that girl so much. If it wasn’t for her, Phile and I would never have survived those hard years and now I was going to have Wolf Rising’s baby and it was obvious that Mandy was going to have Phile’s. It was the second happiest time of my life up to that point.
But then I got to thinking. And by me, I mean I was head-talking to myself in Wolf Riding Woman. I still wanted Phile’s baby. I know he’s the same as Wolf Rising, but still… We confronted him.
“Phile, I am not yet in season,” Wolf Riding Woman said. “And I know we don’t want all the babies born at once. But I want your child in my womb. I think maybe we should start working on it.”
Phile was still trying to come to grips with the fact that he’d already planted one in me through Wolf Rising and in Mandy with his own horny balls. But Mandy and I had been with him every night while we moved the tribe. Wolf Riding Woman wanted him.
I wanted him. I wanted to feel a life growing in my belly that came from my beloved brother. Even if it was in my other belly.
Moms, we did it this way because of those stupid laws in Wyoming about incest. The only way anyone can prove incest if they don’t catch you in the act is through a child. We considered all the birth defect angles, too. We have a slightly higher risk because Mom Mar and Pa are first cousins and Phile and I are half sibs. Um… second cousins? Somebody smart will figure that all out one day.
But I have to tell you that the very next opportunity I get, my Caitlin body will carry the child of my brother Phile. I love him. I have loved him since the day I was born, in two different lives. If I have to live in Oxėse forever, I would do that to have his child.
Getting Wolf Riding Woman pregnant didn’t happen right away. Her body was just tuned differently and needed to have the quiet stability of our family together before she finally got knocked up near mid-September.
“I am ready to stretch the skin,” Merv announced to us in mid-August. He’d spent a month and a half preparing it. It wasn’t just cutting the hide into a circle or reinforcing the lacing holes, but he had to have long strips of hide prepared to lace it in the back of the drum. It would take a couple hundred feet of lacing hide. When he came with us to Oxėse this time, he brought a hoop he’d had made in now-time. Unlike any of the other materials we were using, this was not natural to the making of Cheyenne drums. It was made of titanium and was about the size of a hula hoop. While the hides were soaking for the drum head, he’d been wrapping the titanium hoop in strips of hide until it was about an inch and a half thick. “This was the only way I could create a hoop that would withstand the pressure that will be applied when we tighten the drum head. A normal hide would simply be torn apart.”
“I’m glad we can proceed,” Wolf Rising said. “Shall we begin the ceremony tomorrow?”
“There is one other thing I would like,” Merv said. He scrunched up his face as he looked at the five of us. “I would like John Little Elk to help. It will take all our hands to pull the cords tight enough. Wolf Rising, Wolf Riding Woman and I are trained in the making of a sacred drum. We need the fourth direction. It would take me a long time to prepare one of the villagers to work on this.” Merv had been a regular visitor to the village and had several people there building frames and preparing hides for drums. But even those drums, he needed to bless and stretch.
We’d talked about inviting Little Elk to join us, and he had even asked to visit Oxėse. But there was so much to do in now-time enlisting the support of the other tribes that it seemed impossible. Of course, when we approached him with Merv’s request, he suddenly had a miraculous opening in his schedule as one of his disciples took over the meetings he had planned.
“This is amazing!” John Little Elk said. It was the last week of August and he looked down from our cave across the valley where the village was nestled near the lake. In order to keep the herds of buffalo from wandering right through the village, we’d been busy showing them how to build an earthworks wall around the tents and few wigwams so the bison would naturally part around it. We didn’t plant the village right at the edge of the lake for the same reason. The People had to walk to get water, but the herds had to have access and would be more likely to trample the village if it blocked their way.
Of course, we had a little talk with the herds as well. They avoided coming right up to the village.
“We are building a very large drum,” Merv said after John had a chance to greet each of us and wonder at the world in general. Merv showed Little Elk the frame, the hide, the hoop, and other materials.
“I am your student again, Ma'heónėhetane,” Little Elk answered. “Teach me.”
If you think they finished stretching that hide in a week, you’re mistaken. We ended up keeping Little Elk another week after he’d touched base with his disciples and sent them on their way. The intricate patterns they used in bringing the laces from the hide to the hoop on the back of the drum each had names and rituals. I knew them all in my head, but my whiteman body wasn’t allowed near the drum while the work was taking place. What we were allowed to do was cut wood and make sure the fire in the back of the cave was kept burning so the skin and lacings would dry at an even temperature, even when the weather got cold and damp outside. The slightest dampness will cause the drum head to stretch and the sound to go flat.
That first tap—even on the wet skin—sent a shiver down my spine.
Phile: Preparing the Village
All through the fall and early winter, Cait and I spent most of our time in the village. After popping up once every year or two for the past hundred years of their time, we were an accepted part of their heritage. No one left in the village remembered living in before-time with whiteman. We were the only frame of reference they had.
Wolf Riding Woman and Wolf Rising made frequent appearances in the village as well and our union with Earth Sister/Mandy was well known among the People. They proudly watched Cait’s belly swell with our child, wanting him to be part of their village.
We knew we had to make a place for him in now-time as well, so we located a midwife in now-time Seattle who would attend the birth and file the appropriate papers. She was a Salish woman and had heard Little Elk speak in her community. She was more than willing to help. She was the one who suggested we create the Wolfe family.
As soon as the big drum was stretched, Merv began visiting the village regularly, too. Wolf Rising and Wolf Riding Woman had taught several of the young people how to make frames and they had a few dozen ready to stretch with the hides they had prepared. Merv was considered a shaman in the village who could bless the drums and make them thunder. It soon ended up that he was living in the village and only visiting the big drum in the cave.
Little Elk wanted to return to Oxėse at midwinter. During his short interaction with the People during the summer, he had become enamored of the simple life. He was in his forties and had always been a little isolated. In the village, he was accepted as simply a member of another band of the People who was welcome at their fire. He and Merv spoke a slightly different dialect of the language, but they adapted quickly. After our midwinter celebration, he reluctantly returned to now-time in order to continue visiting the tribes with his disciples.
“When this is over, I’d like to live here,” he confided before we drummed him back to Concho. “This is what my life was meant to be.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “We don’t really know when or even if this will be over.”
You could not have found five prouder parents when Colin Wolfe was born in January. Wolf Rising and I went hunting and brought back a large elk to butcher and celebrate our son. My son. My sperm came from the body of Wolf Rising, but this was my sister whom I had loved from birth.
Wolf Riding Woman was beginning to show and Earth Sister’s bulge was now a prominent feature. We were happy to have so many women in the village who wanted to help care for the children of the Wolf Twins. It was funny how the term had evolved. No one knew if Wolf Rising and Wolf Riding Woman were the twins, dressed in their dark wolf robes, or if Caitlin and I were the twins in our white wolf robes, or if it took a black and a white to make a pair of twins. So the name Wolf Twins came to mean all five of us, for Earth Sister was still the voice of the Wolf Twins.
It was clear by now that the legal channels and appeals in now-time had been exhausted and Shale Oil Company would begin stinging Mother Earth as soon as they could get the equipment operational. The five of us, plus Merv, Little Elk, and baby Colin, sat with the elders of the village and explained that the time had come to prepare for war. We were going to move the village to now-time. We wanted the move done and fully established when the roads in Yellowstone opened in April, so the first week of March, we tested the big drum. We had kept a drying fire going all winter in the cave, keeping the drum warm and protected. It was time to waken the spirits.
Wolf Riding Woman, Wolf Rising, Merv Longsteer, and John Little Elk began warming the drum with light taps in the cave. Even the small strikes echoed. Mandy, Caitlin, and I led the drums in the village. Before long, we could hear the thunder rising from the mountain and we moved. We moved the people, their animals, their homes, tents, fires, possessions, and even the earth wall surrounding the village. Of course, no one in the village understood that they had moved. It was less that we physically moved things than that we created a link between Oxėse and now-time that manifested them in now-time.
It was not until the People came to the rise of their earthworks to look outside that they saw the monstrous installation about a mile away and the stinger derrick poised to jab into Earth Mother that they realized the magnitude of their task. Some of the younger men wanted to attack immediately, but we knew this was not Creator Wolf and Yelloweye’s intent. They did not want an attack. They wanted utter destruction.
In order to keep things under control, we created a bridge between the two realities so that whenever one of the People left the village, whether to hunt or get water or to go to the cave, they left now-time and reentered Oxėse. That way our people would not risk interacting with the now-timers.
A month later, Mandy gave birth to our precious little Beth Ann. I kept thinking that I wished her other grandparents could be with us. But you… We could never risk the family and the land by pulling you into what we were doing. You are all simply too precious. We’ll come to see you as soon as this is over.
Of course, by mid-April, we’d been discovered. There were Park Rangers at the wall as soon as they could get a snowmobile to us. We all met them, but Mandy was our spokesperson. The rangers were amazed that a thousand people could have snuck into their Park without being noticed and set up a village that looked like it had been there for years. They were also surprised that only those of us from now-time spoke English. We had carefully not taught the People that language.
Our People were equally intrigued by the rangers in their uniforms, their heavy coats, and their strange horses. We explained that these men and women were not the enemy who created the scorpion, but were the caretakers of Earth Mother in this region. When we explained the same thing to the rangers, they were softened and agreed that we were not harming the Park or the wildlife. They decided to list the village as an experimental campground and simply buried it in a pile of their paperwork.
In the meantime, Little Elk kept up the pressure on Shale Oil Company. The company had received over a hundred letters from tribal headquarters across the country protesting the pseudo-fracking operation. They all declared that they stood with the protesters at Yellowstone Grizzly Village as we’d dubbed it in honor of both White Mouth’s cave and nearby Grizzly Lake. The hundred or so official letters were only the tip of what the company received. The disciples, as we called them, organized letter writing campaigns among all the People they visited. These letters all declared that SOC would be drummed out of the Park.
And in the midst of the rising pressure, on the third of June, Wolf Riding Woman gave birth to little Avis.
The rhetoric is heated. The company announced they would initiate the pseudo-fracking within a few days. So many protesters have approached the Park that it’s been closed. That’s good. We don’t want that many people in the way when the destruction comes. It’s so sad.
But we felt the box open tonight. I understand. Cait and I are twenty-two years old now. We’ve been gone a year. I’m thankful Ramie waited so long to open the box. But now that it’s open, it’s all real and we can see the scorpion poised to sting.
In Oxėse, thousands… I guess millions of animals have arrived in Grizzly basin. It’s time for us to show them how serious we are. Mother Earth is. We will do everything in our power to limit the damage, but the Old Ones are set on total destruction.
If I don’t get back to this, please always remember to consider the land. And that we love you.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
