Read Online The Man from Forever by Vella Munn - Free Book Online Page B

she needed.
    No! The denial reverberated throughout her, coating everything except the truth about her emotions.
    â€œLoka. Did you kill him?”
    He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, making her think there was no way he couldn’t know what was going on inside her. She felt surrounded by him, but although she should want to run from his impact, the thought barely flitted through her before fading into nothing. “No,” he said.
    â€œNo?” she repeated dumbly.
    â€œMy chief ended him.”
    My chief. “Were you there?”
    â€œYes.”
    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.
    â€œThe 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.
    â€œKeintepoos came armed to the peace talk. He and Ha-kar-Jim had already decided what they were to do.”
    â€œKeintepoos? Ha-kar-Jim?”
    â€œMy 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 intowar. “Your chief listened to Hook—to Ha-kar-Jim? Loka, he was a killer. He murdered innocent settlers.”
    â€œOnly 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.
    â€œSo 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.
    â€œStop? It was my chief’s decision. I would not argue with him.”
    â€œBut you knew he was wrong, didn’t you? I mean, it’s insane to think that killing a general would make the army scatter.”
    â€œInsane?” 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.”
    â€œOur 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