Heartless A Shieldmaiden's Voice: A Covenant Keeper Novel Read online

  The six-year-old whimpered and Carole hollered, “Hey, Heather? Lose anything? Your boyfriend just scared Claire, sneaking in here.” Running a hand over the little girl’s curly hair, Carole whispered to her, “Don’t be afraid. Watch Heather, and if anyone ever bothers you like that, you’ll know what to do.”

  Donald lay on the floor moaning. Heather rushed into the room and started cussing and kicking him. Barefoot, she lifted her foot and brought her heel down on him for maximum impact, furiously following when he tried to roll away. Carole crawled back into her bed, and turned onto her side. Holding her pillow over an ear, she closed her eyes.

  AT NIGHT THE desert became bitter cold. Carole ran faster, but she should have taken a jacket. By morning she wouldn’t be able to feel her feet in this cold. Of course her jacket was in back in the girls’ trailer, where Heather lay entwined with Donald Hitte. Carole couldn’t believe that Heather was stupid enough to take the boy back. She insisted that she loved him. In the darkness Carole snorted and hoped that six-year-old Claire told on them. They’d made the poor girl go sleep on the couch in the commissary trailer. None of the other girls would expose them, probably not even if Donald decided to spread the joy around. Carole left voluntarily, ignoring the temptation to tattle. She really wanted to stay at Happy Acres; inciting Heather’s wrath would probably make that impossible. Besides, she’d promised to kill Donald if he touched her again, and every time the boy looked in her direction she found herself imagining ways to do that.

  Running through the dark desert, Carole focused on the ground in front of her. Treacherous cacti and rocks littered the landscape. Sound echoed from the highway ten miles to the south, humming faintly through the night. Carole’s keen senses took over as she ran. Like a vigilant sentinel, a place in her brain somewhere behind her left eyeball saw much better than her eyes could. It scanned for danger and obstacles, and she took care to avoid a family of javelina less than a mile away. Although she sensed the wild hogs in the distance, her eyes watchfully roved the landscape too. Not even the smallest insect escaped her notice.

  From behind an outcropping of rock a figure suddenly appeared, casting a faint shadow in the starlight and catching her unawares. Surprised, Carole stumbled and skidded to a stop. She could sense the boy now, but why hadn’t she sensed him sooner? Where had he come from? He stood not ten feet away, watching her. Behind him a crescent shaped moon provided enough light to see his straight black hair and dark eyes. He wore jeans and a concert T-shirt, but no shoes despite the cruel cactus spines and sharp rocks. This stretch of land marked the edge of a reservation, but Carole never expected that to matter in the middle of the night. With an apologetic nod she turned towards the southeast.

  He spoke. “Don’t go.”

  Turning to ask why, she found him now close enough to touch and stepped back, disconcerted.

  “You’re very like him,” he touched his chest, “here. I’ve never met another one. I think he’d want to see you.”

  Mimicking the boy, Carole put her hand over her chest. There was another one like her? She narrowed her eyes in the darkness. Was this boy a hallucination? Her schizophrenia in another form?

  “Who are you?”

  “My tribe calls me Fastest, everyone else calls me Jonathan Redfeather.” He ran his hand over his Guns and Roses T-shirt. “You can call me Fastest.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am the fastest.”

  “I’m not your tribe, shouldn’t I call you Jonathan?”

  “You’re like him, so you feel like one of my tribe. Although I’ve been watching you run, so maybe I should be calling you Fastest.”

  “My name is Carole Blank.” She nervously slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and studied the boy. He looked her age, and there was something gentle about him, though he stood too close. His head tipped slightly to the side and his lips rubbed together as he considered her.

  “Blank? Your last name is really Blank?”

  “I didn’t have one, just a blank line after my name on my paperwork. My first social worker didn’t like me very much.”

  “My people were once assigned last names too. Run with me, Carole Blank? I’ll take you to Grandfather. I think he should see you, and he’s too old now, to come so far in the middle of the night.”

  The cold and javelinas forgotten, Carole considered going with him although she could sense no one else in the nearby desert. What if it was true? What if there was someone like her? Standing next to this barefoot boy in the starry night, Carole reached out a hand and touched Fastest. He was solid. He grinned, his teeth very white in his dusky face.

  “Did you think I wasn’t real? I thought maybe you weren’t either. May I?” He held up an inquisitive finger and she nodded. He poked her right over the heart and said, “Ah! It is stronger with contact. Grandfather doesn’t allow me to touch his heart. He said it has been broken too many times. Do the rocks talk to you?”

  Glancing around at the formations in the dark, Carole listened. No, the voices only came from inside her head, and they weren’t happy about Fastest. She ignored them. “Does your Grandfather hear voices?”

  Fastest nodded, “Yes, you do too then?”

  “Yes,” Carole admitted, her decision made. The voices shouted in protest, rumbling through her head. “You must never tell. It is forbidden. They would destroy us.”

  “Will you run with me to meet him?”

  “Yes.”

  CROSSING THIS FAR onto reservation land was outright illegal and it could cost her Happy Acres. Martin Happy wouldn’t hold with anyone bothering Native Americans. If he found out, Marsha would be there as fast as she could get her new Ford Taurus down the rutted desert road. Carole raced alongside Fastest, a thrill rising in her heart despite the danger. The voices criticized and threatened. With every step they got louder, until black dreams began to flicker at the edges of Carole’s consciousness. They had ways of making her listen, but she stubbornly ignored them, her attention on the boy. He was fast, the fastest normal person she had ever met. If she could consider a boy appearing in the desert night and poking her to make sure she was real, normal.

  “Take my hand, Carole,” his voice labored slightly with exertion. “Only my tribe can enter on their own.” Hesitantly, Carole put her hand in his. His touch seemed friendly, welcoming, and she trusted him instinctively. They took a few more running steps and the night changed around them, inky blackness closed over them and a gust of wind almost lifted Carole off her feet. Fastest grabbed her with his other hand, holding tightly and tugging her through the resistant blast. She thought he was shouting something, but couldn’t hear him over the roar of wind. Then the wind was at their backs and they both slid onto the desert floor, skinning their knees.

  “Sorry!” Fastest apologized. “I’ve never brought anyone inside before.”

  “What was that?” Carole’s heart beat faster, but not from fear. The voices had stopped shouting, only faint warning whispers encouraging caution emanated from them now. They knew exactly what that had been!

  “Grandfather calls it a veil, he made it. Look at the sky.” Carole looked up, in the darkness the stars appeared brighter, the slice of moon closer. She breathed deeply, even the resinous earthy scent of desert night tasted stronger, cleaner.

  The huts of Fastest’s tribe were visible in the distance. They ran towards them but Fastest soon skidded to a stop.

  “Do you sense him?”

  Carole sensed nothing, and Fastest looked disappointed.

  “He is very old. He says I am the only thing left for his heart, but he must have felt you coming,” Fastest motioned with his head towards a rectangular stone, a monolith on the edge of the tribe’s village. It seemed to be watching the night for intruders. Startled for the second time that night, Carole both noticed and sensed an old man beside it. She could have sworn seconds before that no one was there. He wore Indian garb like she’d seen some of the men do for tourists, leather trousers with
fringe and a beaded shirt. Long colored feathers were attached with bits of leather ties to his frizzled grey hair. The face looked so ancient and wrinkled that it had surpassed old age and become something to be revered, a masterpiece of time. The eyes were black, intelligent and knowing, and riveted on her.

  “Grandfather, this is Carole Blank.”

  Shaking his head, the old man stepped forward and pressed his hand right against her heart. “Can you feel me young one?”

  Carole understood his question and she tried desperately to feel his heart. The surprisingly strong touch of his hand pressed against her chest as though he could bypass flesh and bone.

  “I can feel yours, young one. It beckons though you hide it well.” He stopped pressing and clasped his hands over her forearms, and she instinctively clasped his in return. He nodded approvingly. “I am Rutak Tural, and I remember you, Cahrul Strongheart. It would seem we never forget the heart of another, though you were a babe when I saw you last.”

  “I could feel her heart too, Grandfather. I knew she was one of your people,” Fastest said. His grandfather nodded in his direction.

  “She is one of my people, Fastest. They used to visit when you were a babe. I knew your grandmother, Cahrul. I declared to her, but she would not have me.”

  “You knew Gran?” The question came out as a disbelieving squeak, and tears welled up in Carole’s eyes, willing it to be true.

  “Oh yes, but I was too old for her even seventy years ago, she would not have me. She loved a man who fought in the Great War. He died before your mother was born in 1918.”

  Carole’s heart sank. For one shining moment she had believed the old man. Gran hadn’t been that old and her mother certainly hadn’t been alive at the end of World War One. Rutak Tural released her arms and frowned at her.

  “You do not know do you young one, who we are? And you don’t believe me. You cannot sense my old, broken heart, but I can feel yours and the sadness there. I am sorry to feel the loss of your grandmother and your mother in it. I did love your Gran all those years ago. She was just a girl then, only forty-seven years.”

  The impossible story made Carole’s heart sink farther. It would mean that Gran had been over a hundred when she died, and Mom—Mom had been just a girl! Too young really, to have a baby. Carole saw her mother’s young face in the mirror every time she looked in it. The old man interrupted her thoughts.

  “This is a great sadness, Cahrul. You still do not believe me.”

  Rutak sighed, and sat down on a rock, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Your mother’s gifting was painting. Her paintings grace half the churches in New Mexico. Your grandmother, her gifting was music and color. How I loved that woman, still do, love is not something that goes away.” Carole reeled. Could what he was saying be true? “Do you remember her, Cahrul? Do you remember your grandmother’s songs? Last time I saw her she put California Dreamin’ in my head so that I still hear it sometimes.”

  The tears spilled over. It was true, all of it, all the memories flooded back, they had been real! Rutak had known Gran! He nodded at her.

  “You believe me now.”

  “You called me—”

  “Cahrul Strongheart.”

  “Am I Native American?” She ran a hand doubtfully over her blonde head. Rutak laughed a hoarse old man’s whispery chuckle.

  “No, no, it is because you have such a strong heart.”

  “And you knew Gran seventy years ago?”

  “Yes, I was born in 1826. I am one hundred and sixty years old.”

  She looked at Fastest and he nodded to confirm the impossibility.

  “He is. It is in our Tribal Histories. My people found him before we were forced onto this reservation.”

  “Yes, and they kept me because I could hear the rocks.”

  “Grandfather, will you listen to the rocks for Carole?”

  “Cahrul,” he corrected, pronouncing the name in a strangely familiar guttural way. “Come, Cahrul. Stand before me and I will listen.”

  “Take your shoes off,” Fastest whispered. Reluctantly Carole stepped onto the backs of her shoes to remove them, then her socks. Sharp rocks and thin burrs that seemed to be part of the eternal dust of the desert jabbed and dug into her soft feet, biting hard. She stepped in front of Rutak, uncertain what to expect of talking rocks.

  “Mmmm.” He bent forward emitting a painful grunt. His gnarly hands patted the ground around her feet. He pushed a hand against her foot and she lifted it. Rutak again patted the ground and the sole of each stinging foot in turn, rubbing painfully against embedded cactus spines.

  “Ahh, yes, yes. You do not eat dirty, the rocks are pleased. These feet will touch rocks in many places. Mmmh.” Rutak groaned slightly then sighed. “Yes, not all are destined for lives of joy, you are a creature of service—you will only know joy when you serve.” He continued to make sounds, most disproving or groans that sounded sympathetic, then a few chuckles. He straightened up slowly, with Fastest helping, into a more comfortable sitting position.

  Fastest squatted beside the old man, looking up into his face as though making certain he was all right.

  “We call him Grandfather,” he told Carole, “though he had no children. He told our tribe to stay here, that the rocks approve. Then he made this veil to cover us, though we do not understand how a man can do such a thing. Grandfather told me the rocks want me to stay with the tribe and stop leaving the veil and going to rock concerts.”

  Rutak wheezed an amused ha-ha. “Your mother asked me to tell you that. The rocks want you to run and listen to their music.”

  “So sometimes he lies,” Fastest groused. “Grandfather, did you never marry because of Carole—Cahrul’s grandmother?”

  Rutak tapped his chest, right over his heart. “She was the only one for me. Our kind must go with one who touches…” he wheezed again and again tapped his heart.

  “What are we?” Carole squatted in front of Rutak, Fastest at her elbow. “Do you hear voices? Telling you what to do?”

  “Mmmpf. You spend too much time alone, young one, if you hear voices telling you what to do. I have my tribe. You must make your own tribe. We are—few.”

  Looking from Rutak to Fastest for clarity she asked, “But there are more of us?”

  Motioning with his arms to include the desert and heavens, he wheezed, “Droplets in the ocean.” Then he closed his eyes.

  Leaning towards him, Carole reached to put her hand over his heart, but Fastest slapped it away. “Don’t. That just might finish him off. He’s only sleeping. You’re the most excitement he’s had in a long time. You should go now, Cahrul. So I can get him into his warm bed.”

  Carole reluctantly slid her shoes on, holding onto her socks. “Can I come see him again? Tomorrow night?”

  Fastest’s dark eyes glinted and he lifted Rutak to his feet. “You can try. Go back the way we came. Put your hands out in front of you and feel your way out, it is very windy at the edges. It will feel hard beneath your hands, but the exit feels like wax paper and it smells like garbage. Push your way through. Goodbye, Cahrul Strongheart.”

  CAROLE RACED BACK the way she had come. The wind blew at the edges of the veil. She glanced back at the clear night sky exhaling a sigh of regret. It felt different inside here, fresher. Lifting her hands, she forced her way through the wind until they met something hard. It was bumpy and solid, as though she were inside a giant fishbowl comprised of dense bubbles. She smelled garbage first, and forced her way along the hard surface until the texture felt exactly like wax paper. She pressed against it and ended up in a face plant on the ground outside. Shoving the stinging heel of a hand in her mouth, she rose and looked behind her. There was no sign of Fastest’s tribe. No sign of the terraced village made of earthen houses. She studied the desert landscape, committing it to memory.

  Carole moved reluctantly towards Happy Acres. She jogged slowly through the desert night, the things that she had seen, that Rutak had told h
er, circling in her mind. Rutak was one of her people! Hugging herself she smiled into the dark and whispered into the night, “Cahrul Strongheart. My name is Cahrul Strongheart.” Vaguely guttural it sounded pleasant to her ears, rolling off her tongue like Rutak’s, “Kuh-rul”. Then questions started to nip at her. Why hadn’t she asked about the black dreams? Why hadn’t she asked about her parents! She suddenly remembered what Rutak said about the voices. Rutak didn’t have voices telling him what to do. The diagnosis of schizophrenia loomed darker, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.

  “But he talks to rocks!” She laughed out loud. When the shapes of Martin Happy’s emus were visible in the distance, Carole remembered a detail. Despite having moved barefoot across the desert, her feet were fine. The barbed pain of embedded cactus burrs had vanished miraculously with Rutak’s touch. The only evidence of her visit with Fastest and Rutak was scraped knees.

  THERE WERE SO many questions to be answered. Carole slipped away every night she could to search the desert for Fastest and Rutak, but she could find no sign of the veil. Sometimes she knew she stood near the place she had entered, but she couldn’t get in. No strange wind kicked up to pull her through. Night after night she couldn’t find the village, or the huge rectangular monolith, or any sign a tribe inhabited the reservation. Hopeful, she searched every night for a week. Determined, she searched every week for a month. By the time October turned into November her search became frantic, and as the months crept past doubt rolled in. Carole began to wonder if it had been real at all, or just another facet of schizophrenia. It had seemed real, not like a black dream, but real. Could it have been a hallucination? Maybe they were starting, her mental illness getting worse. Maybe by the time nineteen rolled around she really would have all the symptoms—maybe she would achieve par and become a perfectly normal schizophrenic after all. By graduation Carole stopped whispering Cahrul Strongheart into the desert night, and forced herself to accept reality, not childhood memories or hallucinations.