“That’s easy. Someone has sent a guide for you.”
Jamie looked across the river. “The eagle?”
Matt nodded.
“What do I do?”
“Follow the eagle. He’ll show you where to go.” Matt got to his feet.
The two boys stood looking at each other.
“Goodbye, Jamie,” Matt said. “You and I will meet again.”
“I’m glad I was able to fight alongside you, Matt.
Say goodbye to Inti and Scar for me. And to Flint.” Jamie unsheathed his sword one last time. He held it for a moment, not wanting to let it go, but he knew he couldn’t take it with him. He handed it over. “Look after Frost,” he said. “I only had it for a little while but it served me well.”
The two of them looked at each other one last time. Then, leaving Jamie beside the river, Matt turned round and walked back towards the camp.
Jamie glanced at the eagle, which stirred slightly, ruffling its feathers. “Which way?” he called out.
The eagle flew the short distance to the next tree, then a little further to one set back from the river. Its message was clear. Jamie was expected to swim across. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea. The river was deep and cold and the water was flowing very fast. But it seemed he wasn’t going to be given a choice.
“Whatever you say…” He climbed down the gully and waded in.
He was halfway across and well out of his depth when he realized that the current was too strong and he wasn’t going to make it. The river had him in its grip and it was carrying him downstream, sweeping him along between banks which rose up ever higher, blocking out the light. Worse still, his clothes were weighing him down, threatening to drag him beneath the surface. Jamie began to panic. He turned round, wondering if he could call out to Matt for help. But Matt was far away by now and the moment he opened his mouth he found himself swallowing water. Desperately, he thrashed around. If he couldn’t reach the bank or catch hold of something, he was going to get pulled under. It was crazy. Had he come through so much simply to drown?
The eagle was still watching him, perched in another tree. Jamie caught one glimpse of it and guessed that what had happened had been quite deliberate. He had been invited into a trap and like a fool he had walked into it. The water – freezing cold – churned and foamed all around him. He went under. Gasping, using all his strength, he broke through the surface and breathed again. Ahead of him he saw a cave, a jagged hole in the rock. The water was rushing into it and Jamie was being dragged along too.
He managed to scream once and then he was sucked into utter blackness. He was pulled under again – and this time there would be no coming back up. Water flooded into his nose and mouth. He was spinning round and round. How had he allowed this to happen? He was certain that this was death.
And then nothing.
Jamie opened his eyes.
He was lying on his side, wrapped in a blanket. He was in the Mojave Desert and it was dusk. There was a small fire in front of him and he could feel a burning pain between his shoulders. Joe Feather was leaning over him. The Intake Officer was smiling, his face filled with relief.
He was back.
BACK TO RENO
“How long have I been here?” Jamie asked.
“Two nights and two days,” Joe Feather replied.
“And where exactly are we?”
“We’re south of Boulder City. In the mountains. Nobody’s going to find us here.”
Jamie made a quick calculation. His time unconscious in this world seemed to equate with his time fighting and surviving in the other. He watched as Joe poked a stick into the campfire, making the sparks leap up. The sun was setting and soon the evening would grow cool, but the fire was really there to boil water, to cook their meal and to provide them with a little light once the night came. There was no sign of Daniel. He was asleep in the tepee.
“There are things I need to ask you,” Jamie said.
“Are you well enough to talk?”
Jamie moved his shoulder blade. The moment he had returned to his own world, the wound had come back. He could feel where the bullet had hit him. He would probably feel it for years to come. But it wasn’t hurting too much now.
“We had to cut you open,” Joe said. “We took the bullet out and dressed the wound with willow bark.” Jamie looked puzzled. “It’s traditional. But it also makes sense. Willow bark contains salicylic acid – it’s a natural painkiller.”
“Who did it, Joe?”
“Me and a friend.”
Jamie nodded. “Well, thanks…” He certainly wasn’t going to complain. He’d seen much worse injuries in the last two days.
“Here…” Joe lifted a kettle from the fire and poured boiling water into two tin mugs. Whoever had driven them here had left them with plenty of supplies. Joe had made a rose-coloured tea that tasted slightly bitter. “Meg gel tea,” he explained. “It purifies your blood. Maybe it’ll push some of the toxins out of the wound.”
“Thank you.” Jamie took the steaming liquid but he didn’t drink. “Are you sure we’re safe?”
“Yes. The authorities won’t be looking for you here and if they are they won’t find us. My people are Washoe. We know how to hide.”
“You’re Washoe too.”
“Yes. Like you and your brother.”
“You knew about the Five.” Jamie remembered what Joe had said when he came to the isolation cell. “Do you know about the Old Ones?”
Joe fell silent for a moment. “That is not what we call them,” he said. “Each tribe has a different name for them. The Navajo call them the Anasazi. That means ancient enemy. We speak of them as the people eaters. They are the same.”
“How did you know who I was?”
“I had been waiting for you.” Joe sipped his tea, inviting Jamie to do the same. “How do I begin to tell you everything you want to know?” he said. “Perhaps I should ask you how much you know about the Washoe – and about other Native Americans.”
“I don’t know very much,” Jamie admitted. “We talked about Indians at school. About what happened to them.”
“Then you must begin by understanding that my people were destroyed,” Joe said. He spoke the words as a matter of fact and without rancour. “The Washoe was a mountain tribe and we learned how to hide. But even so there are only a few hundred of us left today and we have almost nothing. Of course we were not alone. All the native people in America suffered the same way. The white people took our past from us and we grew up with little hope of a future. Many of our parents turned to alcohol to try to forget what had been done to us. Many of our young people have turned to drugs for the same reason.
“But there are some of us who walk two worlds. We work in modern America – in the hotels or casinos or, like me, in the prisons. But we have not forgotten our history. And we still tell the story of a great battle that took place at the beginning of time and of two heroes – twins – who helped to win it.”
“Flint and Sapling.”
“Those are not the names we use. Those names are Iroquois, I think. But it doesn’t matter. There was a time when all the tribes were one tribe. And anyway, the stories have never been written down. They change with the passing of time.
“But even today we still tell stories of twin heroes. The Apache, the Kiowa, the Navajo and many others. The twins are always boys of your age. In many of the stories, Flint is evil. He causes the death of his brother, Sapling.”
“He wasn’t evil,” Jamie said. “Sapling wanted to die.”
“We were always told that the twin heroes would return at a time of great need and that we should watch out for them. There was one way we would be able to recognize them.” Joe reached out and touched his own shoulder. “They would carry a mark. Here…”
“A tattoo…”
“You call it that, but it was not something injected into you. I saw that at once. It is something you were born with.”
“What does it mean?”
“Indian symbols have many meanings. But the spiral is a symbol of human life. Every human being has a spiral on their body – look at your fingerprints or the hair on the crown of your head – and to us these parts have always been sacred. A spiral is circular and never ends, so it can also mean immortality. As for the line, dividing it in two, that could signify many things. Night and day. Good and evil…”