|
Monday, February 09, 2009
 |
Current mood:Stressed
Category: Writing and Poetry
Walking Wolf Road
By: Brandon Herbert
Chapter 45
The road home passed much like the road out had; though I did drive through a good amount of heavy rain through Montana. Wyoming took forever and a half…again… I had some dipshits blow past me at 100 miles per hour just across the Colorado state line, within sight of the giant bison cutout on the hill. Insta-Karma seemed to be at work though as I saw one of those cars pulled over a couple miles up, I couldn’t help but laugh. There was some road construction in southern Englewood that slowed me down, but once I was past that it was a pretty clear ride. Gradually I entered back into territories that kept feeling more and more familiar, passing Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain, and then the Semi-distant Sangre-De-Cristo mountains, until I finally pulled up in front of my home.
The S.U.V. wasn’t parked out front, so I popped my trunk and walked around to get my luggage. As I was reaching inside, I noticed brown cardboard box that hadn’t been in there before. I pulled it out, and read the note taped to the top of the box, “This belonged to your great grandfathers for as long as can be remembered; it belongs rightfully to you now. Love, Pipe’.”
Smiling but curious I popped the tape holding the box closed, and reached inside. The soft texture of worn buckskin greeted my fingertips and I felt around until my fingers caught on some leather straps around the side, and I lifted out the drum Taylor had used. There was a painting of sgwaq'i'm, the full moon, on the side in the tribe’s ancient art style. I smiled and traced my fingers over the artwork, then tapped the drum a couple times, feeling it resonate in my hand. Then I tucked it under my arm, and retrieved my baggage; then closed the trunk and walked up the stairs and into the house. It was silent inside, so I assumed no one was home. John startled me when he walked around the corner, sorting through some mail.
“Hey Jimmy, I thought I heard someone come in, you’re a little earlier than we expected you, your mother’s at the store getting some things for dinner.”
“Yeah, I had some pretty clear roads once I got through Denver.” I answered, and dropped my luggage by my door, carefully setting the drum on one of the seats in the living room.
“So, how’d everything go with your father?” John asked, eyeing my drum.
“It went pretty well…” I chuckled, “Once we figured out how to talk to each other, anyway…”
“Yeah, I bet that was pretty awkward at first…”
“You have no idea! I almost said ‘See ya’, tucked tail, and ran home right then and there!”
“So… did you find the answers you were looking for?”
“Huh?” I asked, confused by the random segue.
“You’ve spent most of your life wondering who your real father was, and even I could tell that you were constantly looking for answers, even after you supposedly ‘gave up’ looking… Did you find some of what you were looking for?”
“You know, I think I did… even answers to a few of the questions I didn’t even realize I had yet…”
John smiled and nodded his head, then looked away and a distant expression fell over his features. I touched his shoulder and shook him a little, asked if he was okay and the looked at me for a moment, smiled then went back out into space. I was about to leave him when I heard him speak, barely above a whisper.
“It’s not easy being a dad… Nobody ever warned me about that, about the sleepless nights worrying, about the conflicts you would have with yourself and with your child…”
“What do you mean…?” I asked, my ears perked forward to catch every word.
“When… When I married your mother, I swore that I would try to be the best dad I could for you… I swore that I would not let your image of fatherhood be tainted by the weakness and poor decisions of the father you should have had… I swore that I would love you, that I would show you how to be strong, show you how to be a good man.
“But… nothing ever seems to work like you want it to does it…? I didn’t realize that I had no idea how to be a father; other than vague memories of a different era altogether when I was a child. Any attempts to teach strength, were met with resentment. Any attempts to show love, with suspicion… Instead, everything became shadowed by this iconic image of a perfect father, whose only mistake in life was to run off on you. And, how could I possibly hope to surpass the deeds of a perfect imaginary father… I’m sorry Jim…” Small glistening beads formed at the corners of John’s eyes, and slowly raced down the lines of his face; I was shocked both by his words and by his tears. “I’m… so sorry… That I couldn’t be the Dad that you wanted… That I couldn’t be the Father you needed me to be…” His voice broke under the weight of a decade’s worth of pent up emotion, finally breaking a leak in the dam.
I felt his emotions swirl through the room, thick and rich like a fog. I walked back over to him and wrapped my arms around him. He embraced me like a drowning man would a life raft; crushing me to him, as the tear in his dam grew slowly wider; and his tears flowed freely. I couldn’t help but shed a few of my own in shared emotion as he rocked me back and forth, resting his face against my head as his body shook and he struggled to reign in an emotion that had lain patiently bottled for too long.
“Dad…” I said when his shaking had subsided some, and he lifted his puffy bloodshot eyes to meet mine. “Dad, you’re the only real father I’ve ever known… When he left us, you were the one who took care of us, and provided for me and tried to guide be as best you knew how… I don’t resent you, for anything! Well, not anymore…” I added wryly. “I love you; I’ve only ever wanted you to be proud of me! Genes are all that are necessary for someone to be a father… But it takes way more than just DNA to actually be a Dad… And you’re the best Dad I could have possibly hoped for; I’m sorry if I haven’t shown it like I should have. I love you Dad… And you are! I don’t give a shit who’s blood flows in my veins; you… you are my real Dad!”
He sniffed at his running nose, and tried to smile around the puffiness around his eyes. “I am proud of you Jimmy, proud of everything you’ve achieved. Everything you’re going to achieve in your life. Don’t you ever think for a moment that I don’t love you, or that I don’t support you.” He took a deep breath and composed himself. “I think I should clean myself up a bit before your mother gets home… she thinks I’m the whole ‘strong and silent’ type; I can’t let that reputation break now, or else I’d really be in for it!”
I laughed, “Yeah, go ahead; I’m gunna go unpack… Oh, and Dad?” I called, as we were about to head apart, “Thank you… For everything you’ve done for me…”
He smiled so deeply his deep blue eyes sparkled in the diffused afternoon sun and reached out to ruffle my hair, “It’s been my pleasure…”
When I looked into the depths of his quick blue eyes, I saw that thing that I had so expected to discover in Idaho, and only found because I finally realized it was missing. This was my home, this was my Father; and this was where I belonged. They say that home is where the heart is, well any doubts as to my heart’s lair were slayed right there. Somewhere deep inside, the dragon let out another anguished shriek as more pieces of it’s darkness began to rot and fade away; allowing more light to shine through it, wounding it further and bringing it closer to annihilation. The beast was now but a shade of its former self; so much of its strength had been drawn from my conflict with John, which too was fading into the past… and now the beast was dying… it was only a matter of time…
* * * *
“Hey Loki, I just got back”.
“Already? Sweet, I’ll be over in a little bit, I wasn’t expecting you ‘till a little bit later.” I’d missed her voice so much, and even the thin tinny imitation of it coming over the telephone line made my heart clench. How was it possible to love somebody so fucking much?
“There’s so much I need to tell you about!” I blurted, smiling at how good it felt to talk to her again.
“You’re not the only one, I’ll be over as soon as I can!” and she hung up the phone.
Sighing, I sank back onto my bed, feeling tension I hadn’t even realized I’d had relax after talking to her.
Goddamn I loved that girl…
While I was waiting for Loki to arrive, I called Taylor to let him know that I’d made it okay.
“Hey is Rene’ there with you?”
“Um, yeah?” he replied suspiciously.
“Have you asked her out on a date yet?”
“Jimmy! There’s a certain etiquette that needs to be maintained in endeavors such as this!”
“Coward. Well, tell her I made it, and that she’d better take care of herself or else I’ll drive up there again to kick her butt! Same goes for you!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever kid; we’ll talk to you soon.” And we hung up.
Loki arrived a short time later and barreled down the stairs to the Dungeon and tackled me onto the bed with a kiss.
I held her face and kissed her reverently, savoring the silk of her lips on mine. We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment afterward; just grinning with happiness.
“It’s been one hell of a long week… So, how did it go? Tell me absolutely everything!” she put her hands on top of each other on my sternum and rested her chin there so she could watch me.
I chuckled a little, “Hope you’ve got patience, ‘cause it’s been one hell of a long week! So, how would you like it; chronologically as it happened, tales of the more mundane happenings, or the key events of greater interest?”
“Yes.” She said grinning.
“Yes to which?”
“Yes.” And she grinned wider.
I heaved a long suffering sigh and launched into a monotonous retelling of the drive out there, hoping to bore her into submission.
I think it started to work…
“Hey, you took pictures right? Why don’t we do this like a slide show, fire that thing up!”
She rolled of me, and I snagged my backpack off the floor and dug my camera out of it. We pushed ourselves up to sit against the headboard as I started giving my ‘slideshow presentation’. She’d know when an event of real importance was coming because suddenly the pictures would jump ahead and I’d set the camera down. I couldn’t exactly snap some Polaroid’s of the Lowerworld, or my scuffle with the bear. She got pissed at me for not calling her after I nearly died, but still wanted to hear the rest of the story since there wasn’t anything we could do about it after the fact. Finally I got to the conversation with John just an hour earlier, and she asked me a question that had been stewing inside me for a while, but hadn’t really presented itself yet.
“So, what do you think this means? Why did all of this happen the way it did?”
“I don’t know for sure, but… I think it happened because I needed it to. John was right, I had questions; more than he or I even knew, that needed answers if I was going to go forward again. After Geri left, it was like I froze; I’d forgotten my identity, my purpose; and this helped me find it. And find myself too… When T’upye became my wolven self and consumed me, I’ve been seeing things and hearing them. I could suddenly speak and understand a lot of things in Schitsu’umsh, and my dreams became even more vivid than they were before. I’ve been able to put myself into a trance to enter the spirit world on my own; and sometimes even enter the astral borderlands just on the other side of the veil.”
“What does this mean? You are obviously supposed to something with this ability, but what? I mean, it’s not like you aren’t already gifted in several ways; I’ve seen what you do with the shadows, and honestly it’s scared me before… “
“I honestly don’t know how this things fit in with the destiny the Great Wolf Spirit dumped on me, but… I know at least one thing that I want to try to do with it.
“What?” she asked in a small voice, wary of me; scared of the unknown that had become an irrevocable part of me.
“I’ve been thinking about this since I met T’upye in the spirit realm; he passed away three decades ago, and there he was as if he’d just left his body and gone there. Untouched, undissipated like Fen feared for incorporeal souls. If I can pull aside the veil and reach the spirits here,” like Corwin I silently though to myself, “I might be able to ask their help finding the one who murdered Fen; maybe… I might even be able to find Fen himself…”
We were silent a moment, she was very still beside me. “You’re starting to scare me,” she whispered. “I’ve spent too much time under the attentions of the dead, they don’t want to help us; they want us to join them because they’re jealous of the living. They’ll drag you over if they can… Please Jimmy, don’t throw away your life for the dead… I don’t want you to leave me.” She pleaded.
“Hell itself couldn’t cleave me from you. There is no way I could ever let go of you; just stay beside me always, love me, and you will anchor me to this place. No spirit of the dead, demon or angel, could sever what I feel for you. As long as you love me, I’ll be here with you.”
“Not even Fen? I know… I know you loved him too…” uncertainty entered her voice.
“Yes, I did. But the love I felt for him, doesn’t shadow what I feel with you, I feel… whole, with you. He never made me feel that way; it was some other kind of love with him. If he beckoned, I would decline.” I took her chin and made her look into my eyes, “You. Are. My. Mate… Half of me lives in you, and you’d better not ever forget that…”
She wrapped her arms around me and buried her face against my chest; I lowered my cheek to the top of her head, inhaling the fragrance of her hair as I held her in return.
“Kwnqheminch Loki…” I whispered into her ebony hair.
“What?” she looked up at me, moisture in her eyes.
I wiped away the fledgling tears before they could fall and smiled at her with all my heart; “I said ‘I love you’…”
She smiled and laughed, and the tears I had tried to stop fell along the lines of her smiling cheeks. “It’s gunna take a while to get used to you spouting off random things in another language. Alright, lets get out of this place. There’s something I want to show you…” She kissed me and then pulled me off my bed and dragged me up the stairs.
A startled “Oh?” was all I could get out before she was pulling me out the back door, hollering at Mom that she’d have me back before too long.
She pretty much dragged me to my car and commanded that I drive her home.
“So, while you were gone I had some extra time on my hands, and I uh… I wrote a song.”
“Oh really? I can’t wait to hear it!”
“I don’t know if it’s any good or not, but I’m sorta proud of it anyway…” I stretched my hand across and scratched the back of her neck, making her lean back into my hand and smile.
“So, you do realize that you pretty much left me alone at school all week right?” she asked with a dark tone as she looked at me.
Uh oh. “Yeah, what happened?”
“Well, it turns out several people were very curious about where you’d disappeared to… One of whome proceeded to stalk me.”
“What? Who? Are you okay?” Total Alpha Male mode kicked in here, and I could feel my eyes change as I gripped the wheel.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself; no actually I turned it around to my advantage.” Her voice grew distant and almost teasing, a little coil of some emotion I couldn’t quite identify squirmed inside my belly. I could have been anger, or fear; or very realistically jealousy, but I just couldn’t quite make it out.
I pulled into her driveway, but instead of leading me inside she brought me around her house to the garage in the back. The doors were all closed, and she told me to close my eyes and not to peek. She brought me inside and left me standing there until she said to open my eyes. I waited impatiently to learn what this surprise was, and my ears kept giving me weird sounds to work with; nothing that really clicked with recognition.
When the first sound hit me, it scared the ever-loving shit out of me! I jumped almost a foot in the air and came down in a battle ready stance. I quickly shifted out of ‘maul’em’all’ mode and my jaw dropped open with incredulity. There was Loki pounding out Metallica’s “Of Wolf And Man” on a much louder amp than I remember her having while… and at this point I was fairly positive I was hallucinating… Bo sat behind a crimson drum set crashing through it with her. After gawking for a second, I started laughing incredulously until the laughter was so extreme it doubled me over and I fell flat on the cold cement floor of her garage spasming and gasping for breath.
“Oh c’mon, that’s not very nice! I didn’t think it was that bad!” Bo said laughing as he and Loki stopped playing.
“It’s not! Its! It’s just! Haaaaaaaaaaaa….” I couldn’t breath I was laughing too hard; little dark spots from my tears stained the concrete.
“Nice to see you too dude, welcome back!” Bo said with a long-suffering tone.
“When,” gasp, “When did you…”?
“A couple days after you left,” Loki answered, “I brought my guitar to school to practice since I didn’t have a certain someone to keep me from being bored out of my mind during lunch.” She glowered at me playfully, “And super-stalker Bo here was wondering where you disappeared to. He mentioned that he played the drums and insisted that we got together to jam. He wouldn’t take no for an answer! Mom and Dad got me a bigger amp so I could hear myself over this gorilla; I can’t believe they actually sided with him over me!”
“And,” Bo stated smiling, “This story’s pretty much chock fulla bullshit…”
“Bastard...” Loki muttered, glaring at him. He just stuck his tongue out at her and ducked when she threw her pick at him.
As I watched them I suddenly felt a glimmer of, almost déjà vu… I’d learned as of late, better than most, just how blatant fate can be when twisting her threads. I felt emboldened by my premonition, and so I opened my mouth and said something I would have never thought I’d blurt out in my life.
“Hey Bo, how’d you like to learn the truth about werewolves?” I said and smiled baring my fangs.
10:32 PM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|