This is another peek at my first novel: "Kids that Kill"

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 7

 THE FOREST CALLS

 

 

         Cheyenne and I packed up. We didn’t understand it but one thing for sure… Something was pulling us in another direction. I didn’t say anything. I held Cheyenne’s hand and I turned north and headed away from the highway and the railroad tracks, and Oklahoma! My sister could feel it to, she didn’t say a word she just followed me. Our journey was relentless, we pushed deeper and deeper into the forest! We stopped for a while and rested by a small creek but not for long. The day was diminishing so I started hunting. This slowed our pace way down! It required us to move in complete silence looking for prey. After awhile, we came to an opening, not a large meadow or a valley, just a small open field with tall grass and wild flowers. I approached it with the silence of the dead! Something told me to look closely… So I did….. In the corner of my eye I saw something move, I focused my stare in that direction! There it is! I motioned for Cheyenne to freeze! So she did! It was a good sized rabbit with big ears! It was the ears that caught my eye at first.

          I aimed and shot! It only took one shot and the rabbit fell! We picked it up and looked at it…. It was fat! We looked at each other and smiled. We will have rabbit for dinner tonight and we were both starving! We kept moving until we heard a roar! Once again, we looked at each other and smiled. We knew what the roar was and we headed in that direction! We came to a good sized river and we were looking at “white water” rapids! I told Cheyenne: “we’ll stop here for now, I’m to hungry to keep going!” She was happy to hear me say that. I got a campfire spot ready, then I went looking for wood. Cheyenne already had the rabbit cleaned and ready for cooking when I got back! So I got the fire going and we set old Mr. Rabbit on a stick over the fire and started cooking. I took our two tin cups to the river and filled them with clean water running clear over a big rock. We felt so much better once our tummies were full! Cheyenne was sitting on the blanket leaning against a big rock. I laid my head in her lap and she ran her fingers through my hair. I loved this a lot! Cheyenne could do things that would calm my spirit and she didn’t even know she was doing it! She asked me: “How much farther are we going to go in this direction Cherokee?”  I said: “I don’t know sis, All I know is something was telling us not to jump on a freight train. Maybe we would have been spotted by some one who has heard about the two kids that went into that cabin, rescued Mandy, shot and killed the bastard that kidnapped and raped her, then set the cabin on fire with the kidnapper still inside!”

         “You and I know that what we did was the right thing to do! We really are just two kids. Walking into the cabin, or walking up to the other men, the two hunters and the two robbers that were about to kill Billie and Sally May and saying stick em up! Well that would not have worked! They would have started shooting at us and most likely, all of us would have been killed! The police may not understand why we killed all of these men but they weren’t there, they don’t know what a serious situation we were confronted with! We had to kill them, we had too…. It was the only way for all of us to stay alive. The cops may not know this but we do, right?”

         I looked up at Cheyenne and I could see a far away look in her eyes and they were starting to tear! I raised myself up and hugged her to me. She put her head on my shoulder and started crying…. I don’t know why it is but, when she cries, I cry too. I said: Don’t cry sis, I know this is difficult but do you understand everything I’m saying to you?” she said: “Yes I do but why do I have knots in my stomach, I’ve had them since we left the cabin, do they ever go away?” I said: “Yes they do, it takes a day or two but don’t you see….. The knots in your stomach are a testimony to you being a good person! If your stomach wasn’t twisted up in knots it would mean you liked killing the bastard! Even though he deserved to die it still hurts your heart that you had to be the one to kill him!” We didn’t ask for any of this did we? But I’m telling you Cheyenne, think about it, What would have happened if I went into the cabin to get Mandy, then the kidnapper came in behind me and caught me. He sees an eleven year old boy getting ready to leave with Mandy and you know he wasn’t going to let it happen. What would have happened to me and to Mandy if you for some reason froze, you weren’t able to shoot the guy, what would have happened?”

         Cheyenne whispered: “He would have killed all three of us!” I said: “ Exactly! Don’t you see sis, you didn’t just save Mandy last night…. You saved all of us! If it weren’t for you Mandy wouldn’t be home with her parents and you and I would be dead out there by that dam cabin! You didn’t want to do it….You HAD to do it! There was no other way, there wasn’t! I owe you my life sis! I kissed her and by now I’m crying really hard!!  We both were crying almost out of control! I guess everything was just building up and building up inside of us until we couldn’t hold it in anymore. It was especially hard for Cheyenne seeing little Mandy naked tied to a bed and gagged! God only knows how all these things are going to affect us for the rest of our lives! Cheyenne kissed my face the way we both kissed Mandy so I kissed her back the same way! We hugged each other and cried until we couldn’t cry anymore!

          Finally, I kissed Cheyenne on the cheek and said: “We still have a few more hours before nightfall, let’s follow this river upstream for awhile and look for a better place to spend the night, maybe by a part of the river that’s calm and peaceful ok?” She thought that was a good idea so we packed everything back up and took off. After about an hour we came to a place where the river was running slow and peaceful. There was even a little “cove” where there was no current. I looked at Cheyenne and asked: “How’s this?” She didn’t have to think about it, she nodded her approval and unloaded her bag and the blanket, I did the same. We set ourselves up for spending the night here. It was a really nice place to be, I even thought…. We will both sleep good on the side of this peaceful river tonight.

         I told Cheyenne: “I’m going to fix the trout line and put in the water just to see what we catch.” So that’s what I did. I baited the hooks with a couple of flying insects I caught and put the line in the water down stream a ways from where we were camped. The day was long, hot and humid so it didn’t surprise me when I got back an saw my sister already naked and in the water! I know what it is…. She’s a young woman and hates being hot, sweaty, and dirty. So she’s going to bathe every chance she gets! I wasn’t interested in going through the hassle of undressing, going in the water, washing myself as best I can and then getting dressed again. I laid down on the blanket, then I stretched out and fell asleep while my sister bathed in the river.

         I don’t think I slept for an hour when I woke up and Cheyenne was sleeping next to me wearing nothing but her underwear. I guess it was still to hot for her so she didn’t get completely dressed. The night was upon us and soon it would be dark. Sis woke up and looked at me and said: “when did you wake up?” I said: “I just now did.” She got up and got dressed. I asked her: “Do feel like eating fish for dinner or not?” She looked at me and said: “I guess, It’s to late for you to go hunting now.” Then she said: “I’m going for a walk, I’ll be right back.” I didn’t tell her to be careful. I didn’t tell her not to stray to far away like I usually did. Cheyenne is a warrior now! She’s knows how to protect herself and me if she has to, I just let her go. Besides, when she says she’s going for a walk it usually means she has to pee so I knew she would be right back.

          I went down stream and checked my trout line. Like always, I had two good size fish on the line! This time it was trout. I brought them back to camp and started cleaning them and preparing to cook them for dinner. When Cheyenne came back, it was only then I realized she had been gone for quite a while! I asked her: “What took you so long?”  She said: “You need to come look at this?” I looked at her and said: “What now?” As I followed her back into the forest. By now the night had overtaken the day and darkness enveloped the forest! We stayed close to the river for a while then she turned away from it and we came to what looked like a straight up wall of a mountain! She led me into some wild bushes and said: “Look!” Close to the ground was a hole in the side of the mountain so I bent down to look inside but couldn’t see very far cause it was to dark! I looked up at Cheyenne and asked: “Where do you think this goes?” She just shrugged her shoulders. I asked: “ Do you want to check it out, I can light a branch on fire and we’ll see how far it goes if you want?”

          When she smiled at me I knew what that meant. I looked around for a dead branch and managed to start it burning. We both got down on our knees and started into the tunnel. That dam tunnel must have been a half mile long! But, eventually we came out on the other side! It was pitch black and there was no moon, at least not yet. We couldn’t see much but we moved away from the mouth of the tunnel, slowly! There was something different about this place, I didn’t know what it was but even Cheyenne could feel it and she took my hand as we moved cautiously forward….The reason why it was so dark is because clouds had formed in the sky and not long after that it started to thunder and lightning in a way we had never heard before! Now Cheyenne was hugging me. She asked: “What is it Cherokee, what’s happening?” I said: “I don’t know sis, but we need to find out. So we kept moving. The lightning would give us flashes of light so we could see a little bit. After a while we came to a clearing almost as if we had been led to this place!

          With the lightning flashing almost constantly now, we were both scared half to death! But, we could see a series of old Totem poles placed in a “V” formation! There was a big one in the front with the others lined up behind it in this “V” formation! I was holding on to my sister as tight as I could but I could feel every drop of Indian blood running through my veins being emotionally charged, telling me we stumbled onto a sacred place known only by Indians! I told Cheyenne: “sis, get down on your knees, as I got down on mine!  

        While we were on our knees it seemed like the thunder and lightning was increasing and getting louder and louder! Cheyenne refused to let me go and I could feel her whole body trembling! I didn’t understand what was happening but I knew this was something special, even spiritual, and we were drawn to this place for a specific purpose! Cheyenne leaned close to me and said: “Maybe we shouldn’t be here, maybe we should leave!” I put my arm around her waist and said: “Sis, everything that has happened in the last twenty four hours has been leading us to this place, We need to find out what it is the spirits want from us!” Thunder and lightning all around us! Suddenly there was smoke coming from the “V” formation of the Totem poles!  Even with strong winds blowing the smoke stayed right where it was! I think Cheyenne started to cry! This wasn’t normal! The smoke was swirling around and around until we could see Indians standing in a row! At the front there was a Great War Chief with a full Indian head dress, he had a bow in one hand and a spear in the other! Our ancestors had brought us here!!…. But why?……..

          This whole scenario was becoming more and more frightening with each passing minute! The countenance of the Great War Chief began to shine like the sun! where his eyes should be there were flames of fire! He raised his arms high and gave out a sound like the roar of a thousand buffalo echoing through the canyons of the world! Cheyenne buried her head in my chest and was saying: … Oh God… Oh God…we’re going to die….We’re going to die!!!”  At this point I was inclined to believe her!!! I began to think that maybe we did something wrong, that we in some way angered the spirit of our ancestors, and now we were going to be executed by this spirit tribal counsel we’re kneeling before at this minute! I mean, we’re just two kids scared out of our wits not knowing what in the world is going on!

          Suddenly, the thunder and lightning began to subside. It didn’t stop but it almost did. Then Cheyenne and I both heard a voice….. But it wasn’t audible, it was inside our heads, telling us to “Rise!” So we both stood up, we were both crying now! The Great War Chief was talking to me and my sister! We froze standing right where we were! I had one arm around Cheyenne and she had one arm around me, we were both shaking in our boots! The War Chief said: “You are two young “Braves!” You have brought much Honor to this valley, you have Honored your ancestor’s and you have showed great courage in the face of much danger! You respect the decree of the forest and you show honor to all living things! We have witnessed your bravery fighting to protect the weak and the innocent! Inside you both beats the heart of an Indian!” Cheyenne and I both are sobbing now! We are no longer as scared as we were at first!

             The War Chief motioned for us to approach…. So we did…. He didn’t have to ask, both of us dropped to our knees once again, and humbled ourselves before this great Chief! Using his spear he touched Cheyenne and then he touched me on the head and once again told us to rise! …So we did!….  He said: “ You will stay in this canyon for five days. On the morning of the sixth day you must continue on your journey. No harm will come to you as you make your way west in your quest to find your family! It is the decree of this tribal counsel! Listen to your heart, protect those who need protecting, save those who are innocent and have no one to speak for them. Today, you have been told. This is your destiny, for this you have been called, you have been chosen. Do not turn away from your calling. Do this, and the spirit of your ancestors will never leave you!”

         As soon as the Great War Chief said all these things, he slowly backed away from us, as himself, and all the other Indians standing there with him disappeared into the cloud of smoke. The smoke disappeared into the ancient Totem Poles, and they were gone. No more thunder and lightning, the clouds went away, and the moon smiled down on me and my sister! We were still crying out of control! Dropping to our knees again we held each other tight and cried for a long time! Finally, Cheyenne put her head on my shoulder next to my neck and asked: “What just happened Cherokee, Was that real, did that really happen?” I said: “I’m afraid it was real alright sis, only thing is, no one will ever believe it! Just you and me because we were here and we saw it with our own eyes!” Won’t be no use telling this story to another living soul. But, that’s ok, we know it happened sis, We will always know in our hearts that we were chosen by our Indian ancestor’s and now we must be true to the calling!” Cheyenne asked: “What calling…. What are we supposed to do now?” I said: “That’s just it sis, we don’t do anything different, The spirits have told us to keep doing what we’ve been doing. They said we, you and I Sis…..Have brought honor to the forest and to our ancestor’s! To the spirits, you and I are full blooded Cherokee Indians! So, now we have to be true to this calling! That won’t be very hard to do will it?” Cheyenne said: “No, that should be easy in fact!”  Only when I heard her say that did I finally smile!

         I got up and gave my hand to my sister helping her up as well. I hugged her again and kissed her on the neck saying: “Come on “squaw!” Seeing as how we have to stay in this canyon for the next five days we need to go get our stuff!” Cheyenne squinted her eyes at me and said: “Squaw…. You called me squaw?” I smiled and said: Ok, my beautiful Indian Princess, let’s go get our stuff!” It was still early when we got back through the small tunnel so I rounded up some firewood and we cooked the two fish I caught earlier in the day, we were both starving so we didn’t complain about what we had to eat!

        Because it was to dark to go looking around we just put the blanket down and with so much going on inside our head we cuddled up close to each other, My sister’s head was on my shoulder as we prepared to go to sleep. After a few minutes of just lying there thinking, Cheyenne whispered in my ear: “Our ancestors are telling us that we’re not bad kids aren’t they?” I said: “That’s what their saying Sis. We haven’t killed anyone or anything without good reason! We only kill what lives in the forest in order to survive, we don’t ever kill for sport, our ancestors would never approve of something like that! Plus, we haven’t killed anyone that didn’t need killing! Bad people who were about to hurt and kill someone sweet and innocent, like Mandy! Because of you sis, Mandy will get to grow up being loved by her mamma and daddy! I’m sure what she went through will affect her in some way for the rest of her life! We can only hope that she deals with it the best way she can, but at least she’s alive and will have the opportunity to live out  her full potential.”

         Cheyenne was quiet, I know everything we’ve been through the last month or so has been hard for her! She tries to take mom’s place and look after me the way mom would, but she gets scared and unsure of herself and that causes her to suffer from an insecurity that affects most young girls causing her to lean on me more than she wants to, because to her I’m still just an eleven year old little brother! It must be a horrible dilemma  for her but she’s my sister, I lover her beyond all human reasoning. She’s tough and together we’re going to do whatever we have to do to survive!

         The events of this evening were physically and mentally draining on both of us! It’s not everyday you are visited by your Indian ancestors! Cheyenne and I were somehow different now! To hard to understand for two kids on the run. Eventually, we fell sound asleep. Both of us slept late. I guess we really needed the rest! Funny, when one of us wakes up, the other one wakes up almost at the same time. Cheyenne said: “Explain to me again, why do we have to stay here for the next five days?”  I said: “The Great Spirit didn’t say exactly. However, we have to do what he says, if we don’t we might find ourselves in serious trouble somewhere down the line. It’s ok Sis, We can still get to Oklahoma way before the cold sets in!”

        Right now, we were in a very sacred place! I felt special just to be here! I said: “let’s go look around to see if there is a better place for us to set up camp. If we’re going to be here for a while we might as well see if we can find a nice place by water.” So we loaded up and took off!! We followed the river up stream. From what we could see, this was like a huge box canyon! On all sides there was at least a thousand foot cliff and apparently no way out of here except the way we came in… Through the little tunnel! This, I thought, was the perfect hiding place! A couple of Hours had passed, we were even making our way through a small forest! Once again I thought….. Where there are trees, there is food! But for some reason we just kept moving. Finally, we came out into a clearing and there it was! A waterfall coming from about two hundred feet up the side of the cliff! It looked like it was gushing out of a huge hole! At our feet was much more than just a “pond” like the one we left behind! This was more like a lagoon creating it’s own little paradise! This had to be the most beautiful place on the face of the earth! I looked at my sister, she looked at me…..She said: “I don’t believe this! I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”

          I said: “Well, I guess I know where we will be staying until it’s time to go!” Cheyenne said: “You can say that again Injun!” I squinted my eyes and said: “Injun, you just called me Injun?” She smiled and said: “Oh, I meant, my handsome Indian “Brave!” reaching over she ran her hand through my already messed up hair! Cheyenne is the curious one, more than me. We dropped all of our stuff and I started throwing rocks in the water all along the edge of the lagoon wanting to scare any snakes that might be hiding close to the edge. I walked along the edge of the water looking closely for anything dangerous that might hurt my sister cause I already knew it won’t be long before she’s naked and swimming in this beautiful lagoon!

         Suddenly, I heard her whistle! I knew she was ok, no one would be in this place, and no one will be allowed to hurt either one of us! Our ancestors told us so! I whistled back and headed in her direction. When I found her we were once again spellbound by what we were looking at! It was a huge hole in the side of the mountain but it didn’t look like a natural cave! It looked like some one had chiseled it out of stone by hand! It would have taken years maybe to do this but we were still amazed at what we were looking at!

         Once again, I said: “Well, I guess we know where we will be sleeping tonight huh?” Cheyenne said: “Looks good to me!”  We went back to the lagoon and got our stuff and put everything in this man made cave. But, just like I said, Cheyenne took the blanket back to the lagoon. She undressed asking me if the water was safe? I said: “yes, I checked pretty good. She was in the water in a flash! I yelled: “be careful, it looks like it might be deep out in the middle!” Of course, we were both excellent swimmers but for some reason I always feel compelled to warn her to be careful even though I know it’s going to irritate her! And, it did!

          I yelled again: I’m going hunting for dinner, be back as soon as I can!” She said: “Ok, but when you get back your getting in this water and taking a good bath! Plus we have to wash all of our clothes!” I nodded, I knew she wouldn’t let me go to long without bathing, especially when we were by good clear water!. I headed into the trees and instantly…. I became “The Hunter!” Cheyenne will eat fish, we both will, when we’re good and hungry, we’ll eat just about anything! But she likes it when I bring back a bird or a rabbit, she really likes both. I was only gone maybe two hours. I came back with a rabbit and a good sized pheasant! We won’t be hungry today! Cheyenne was just finishing washing her clothes and putting them on a rock to dry.

          When she caught sight of me with dinner in my hand she gave me a really big smile! I loved to see her smile, it means that for a minute or two she’s happy! She said: “Get your clothes off so I can wash them while you clean the rabbit and the pheasant, that way we will be done with everything at the same time and we can eat! So that’s what we did. I set up some rocks in a circle and went looking for firewood. I had to prepare two sticks for the food so we could cook both of them at the same time. Cheyenne was already done washing my clothes and lying on the blanket sunbathing. She unbraided her hair and combed it out. Lying on the blanket naked with the sun shinning in her hair she looked like an angel from heaven.

          When I got everything ready I yelled at sis to come on and let’s get this food on the fire! She got up and went to check on our clothes but they were still really wet. She came back to where I had the fire going and said: “It looks like we’re going to eat naked, our clothes aren’t dry yet!” I just said: “I don’t care, I’m hungry!” She said: “Ok, I’ll get the food started, you go take your bath and you better do it good or I’ll do it for you!” I stood up and said: “Yes Mommy!” as I headed for the lagoon. I love Cheyenne so much! I love it when she “Mother’s” me cause I miss Mom something terrible!

          The water in the lagoon was nice and I was having fun just swimming around in it until I heard Sis yell at me to come and eat! By now I’m starving so she didn’t have to ask me twice! I got out of the water and helped Cheyenne get the bird and rabbit ready for us to eat. After we were done it was still early so we both went back into the water and played around for a while. I looked up at the water fall coming from way up the side of the cliff and it dawned on me! I said: “You know what sis? I bet there’s gold coming out of the hole and landing in the lagoon! To bad we didn’t bring those “Pans” so we could pan for gold while we’re here!”

          Cheyenne had a strange look in her eyes, and a smirk on her lips as she said  “Yeah, your right.” I didn’t know what to think about it so I just let it go and we played around in the water for a little while longer. When we were done swimming we went to the blanket and laid down and fell asleep. It didn’t bother us to sleep naked. We felt safe here in this sacred place and didn’t worry about some one coming up on us unnoticed.  When I woke up Cheyenne was dressed and standing over me smiling! I asked: “What’s so funny?” She had something behind her back and slowly brought it around so I could see what she had…..They were wrapped in the rags we found back at the old mineshaft but I knew immediately what it was! She handed me the “Pans!” she actually brought both of them with us just in case as she put it! I smiled and said: “ I should have known you would not have left without those dumb pans!” Well, it was getting late in the afternoon so I told Cheyenne that I’ll go hunting early in the morning for our dinner and then we will “pan” the rest of the day and see what we find. She looked at me…… I looked at her…… Yellow fever struck both of us again!! 


                         this was my first novel after writing my autobiography. I went on to write two more after this one. 2nd novel: "The Orphan Vigilante"   and the 3rd novel: "Called to Kill." Also, my 22 yr. old Grand daughter wrote her first novel: The Last Cheetah Ling Shape Shifter by: H M Summers.  you can find all of them on www.amazon.com  Search Barry Lee, or the title of the novel. thanks... Barry