Styx & Stones by Lahela Ino. Courtesy of The Ringling College of Art + Design.

The Shasta Caper, Chapter 50 Part Two

Chapter Fifty, Part Two

"Samuel." Nanny said after taking a hit off her canteen and wiping her lips with the back of her sleeve. "How'd that Saran character escape the explosion of his ship?"

Samuel considered that a moment. "It's possible he didn't die in it."

Jimbo butted in. "We don't even know what kind of escape mechanisms they have for such a situation. Maybe he parachuted."

"We didn't see any."

Jimbo looked  away. "Maybe they were stealth."

Nanny laughed. "Now that is stretching it."

Samuels eyed the lake intently a few moments. "I think I see people down there. "

They all turned to watch where Samuel pointed.

"Darned, if you aren't right, partner!" Jimbo said, his eyebows furrowed in thought. "But they don't look big."

"Maybe not everyone is...."Nanny cut in. "...Here."

"Only one way to find out." Samuel said, rising to his feet. He stretched to get the kinks out of his back and legs, then began marching downwards again.

As they continued the rough ground about them became thicker with vegetation. Large areas of wild flowers spread colorful lines of blossoms and sporadic brush with red and gold leaves sprouted from within the lines of flowers.

Once an odd creature poked its head up from the brush and looked at them.

Nanny almost shrieked. "It's an elephant!"

"My God! Your'e right." Drawled Jimbo. "A pigmy elephant."

"Kinda hairy for an elephant." Samuel noted.

Nanny grabbed Samuel's arm. "I got to see if I can touch it."

"I wouldn't..." Samuel started to warn her, but she was already off, heading for the tiny creature. It watched her as she approached, its tail swishing busily. It munched on a flower, then looked down and plucked another with its trunk to shove into its mouth. 

She dropped down onto her knees next to the creature and gathered a flower blossom and held it out. The elephant made a wary sound and backed up a bit.

"It's okay, baby. Mommy won't hurt you." She told it, a bright smile on her lips.

The creature stiffened again, but when she laid the flower down, it edged closer and took the flower and jammed it into its mouth. Its eyes widened with pleasure.

Nanny laughed and the elephant made a small trumpeting sound.

She plucked another flower, one out of the elephant's reach and a different kind and color and held it out. The elephant didn't budge at first, then it tentatively moved closer and snatched the flower from her. It ate the flower, then stood still looking at her. It raised its trunk and made what couldn't be considered anything else than a pleading sound.

She plucked one of the higher flowers and laid it on her right knee. The elephant eyed it hungrily, wavering a bit, then it edged closer and snatched the flower. It swallowed it, then gave her a new pleading look. But this time it lightly tapped its trunk on her knee. She smiled warmly, then grabbed two flowers this time and placed them on her knee.

The elephant moved cautiously closer, then put its two front feet on her knee and swept the flowers into its mouth. It remained in that position, giving her a new look of demand. Nanny plucked an especially large one and held it in her hand for the elephant. It stepped the rest of the way up onto her knee and ate the flower from her hand.

She gently placed her fingers across its back and it didn't flinch or try to get away. She gently stroked it.

Jimbo and Samuel watched with amusement and delight as the spectacle unfolded. "You have to admit, Sammie, she's got a touch with the critters."

"I'm sure your horses would love her, Jimbo."

Jimbo didn't see Samuel's face. His eyes were on Nanny. "I'm sure they would."

Some Superman Comic Book Fun Goodies

The Shasta Caper, Chapter 50, part one

Chapter Fifty

Samuel would never be able to look at Nanny again the same after his experience. It was like that. Once you remembered a past life that clearly that person you experienced it with just didn't feel the same to you anymore. All the memories of that life were now in the open. Yes, much of it faded with time, but the course was set now. The relationship was forever altered.

He had loved Nanny in another life, but not as a man, but as a woman. An Indian woman. On many levels he was glad of the experience, despite the emotional pain it had brought at first, because once more he was understanding more clearly how the earth really worked. That it was not about money, fame or future, but about relationships. And it again reminded him of how shallow the lives were of some, who saw their lives as defined by what they owned, rather than by what they were on the inside...the golden part of the self...loving, caring, kindness.

"Samuel." Jimbo interrupted his thoughts.

"Yeah. I'm okay. We better get moving while we can."

They continued to follow the cover that was allowed through the thinning band of trees on the hills as they descended towards the vast lake they had seen from before. 

Again, Samuel mused at the vastness of this realm. He looked up and saw vast continents above 

them, huge bodies of water and resplendent forests and mountains. It was a world of beauty. Great beauty, and yet there was part of it that was dark and sinister.

He realized that the Ancients knew more than he ever could and respected their decision to allow the Floating City and their inhabitants the right to live there, but he also knew that the deeping darkness of those who inhabited it must sooner or later spell their doom.

God was patient, but sometimes it took a thorn to remove a thorn, and if those who gathered in the heights of the sky were dead set on not changing, not becoming part of this beautiful world, there would come a day when their freedom would end.

As they gathered beneath a towering tree, filled with odd-shaped fruits, they heard a vast  humming sound. They looked up and immediately ducked for cover. It was the floating city again.

They hid beneath some thick shrubbery and watched as the vessel would cast  huge laser like lights upon the ground below, as if hunting for something...probably them...then it would continue on.

"I got a bad feeling about them." Jimbo growled.

"Whatever they are." Nanny added. "I don't think bad is the right description."

Samuel said nothing. He was noting how Al was frowning. 

"Nanny, even the most horrible of people will one day see the Light." He reminded her.

"Maybe so, Mister Angel Guy, but I don't think it's this lifetime for these ones?" She countered, bobbing her hair around to get it out of her eyes. Frustrated, she grabbed it and began knotting it together.

"I'd give a million dollars right now for a rubber band or a hair clip." She grumbled, finishing up the knotting of her hair. She looked at the guys. "How do I look?"

On their look she frowned, then sighed. "Remind me not to do this again."

They laughed, then as the city vanished from view in the distance, they sought the path and again descended.

The giant lake was clearly in view when they stopped next. They rested next to some high boulders and thick shrubs, so they could stay out of sight from the floating city and any flying vessels above."

A collection of artwork for my bookcovers I've made over the last two years.

I thought it would be fun to do a simple slideshow of the work I've done over the last several years for my stories and novels. It's amazing when I look back, that not only did I have a full time job teaching, but that I also produced almost a hundred stories and novels.

Do I have a reason to take a vacation now?

;)

--John--

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Forty-Nine, Part Two

It was close to dawn. The stars were still bright sparks in the smouldering sky of night, where clouds swirled around a hungry moon, whose white face was attempting to break through them, but failing.

She looked down at her hands. They were raw and red from all the planting she had been doing. They were also quite wrinkled.

She smiled. She'd had a good life. A very good life.

She looked up at the stars again. 

Dawn was beginning to erase them one by one and the clouds burst into fire beneath their rims, as the morning sun cast its glance across them.

She looked to her right and saw the village. Still asleep.

She was usually the first one up. 

She looked at the great mountain top that their village sat beneath. It was capped with snow that glittered blood red from the dawn sun. Spinters and fingers of red splashed down the mountainside and cascaded to the foot of the boulder she stood upon, even coloring the tan mocasins she wore on her feet.

"Today would be a good day to be with the Sky Father."

She felt his presence come behind her and his warm hands clasp her frail shoulders. She leaned back into him. Hungry Wolf was nothing like his name. In his youth he had been brave and brazen, sometimes going off to battle against the white man who was beginning to rob their tribe and the others of their lands. Their sustenance and their lives. She turned into his clasp and looked up into his brown eyes. They were filled with a depth of understanding that only age and much wisdom could imbue them with.

"I remember when we first met here. You, so young and bold. Me, so young..."

"And beautiful. Even as today." He said, caressing her hair with his lips.

She sighed, feeling her whole body tremble with desire for him. Not physical desire, but a need to be closer, closer than ever. She felt that at the same time as she felt this weaking, loosening of her hold on the world.

"Help me sit down." She begged.

He gave her an alarmed look, then quickly hid it as he helped her to sit down on the blanket she had woven years back and spread on her prayer rock. He sat beside her and drew his own blanket over the two of them.

"I think Sky Father is coming, Hungry Wolf." She said, her words simple and deep with truth.

He nodded. She didn't see it, but she could feel him doing so. They had become so close that there was little he felt that she didn't also.

"I will miss you." He whispered in her right ear.

She clasped his strong, bronzed right hand with her left one and bowed her head in gratitude. The Father had been good to her. Her life had been long. Two wonderful children had been born. All still alive.

She leaned back into him and shut her eyes.

She could feel the warmth of his body clasping her tightly, then she felt this kind of buzzing sound in her ears.

"He comes."

"I know. Be not afraid, my princess of the sky."

Sky Princess was her name. She had been named that because her mother had given birth to her at the top of the mountain.

"I am not afraid with you here." She said.

Then she felt a warmth moving from her toes to her ankles, then her midsection. The warmth spread throughout her body and as it did, she felt a sense of a heavy burden about to be lifted from her.

"I love...you." She said as her words grew softer and faint.

His voice seemed to come from a distance. "This is one walk I can not come with you, my Sky Princess."

Then his voice vanished.

She opened her eyes and found herself on the same boulder, but now there was a tunnel of golden light rising from it towards the stars. Near its top, she saw another tunnel...of pure white light and she saw her father and mother and great ones of her tribe.

She stepped onto the golden path and it seemed as if her feet were gliding, not actually touching anything, then she stepped off into the white light and threw her arms wide as her mother and father rushed forward to greet her. She felt her heart was about to break with the intensity of love she felt at that moment. She wept with joy as they enfolded her in their arms.

WHAM!

Samuel staggered back from Nanny and for a brief moment he saw Hungry Wolf overshadowing her, then he had to wipe at his eyes, for they were flooded with tears. They were together again. After many lifetimes. He felt her...his last live's love for Hungry Wolf...who was now Nanny and he couldn't hold back anymore.

He threw his arms around her and wept like a child.

She stiffened at first, then held him back, caressing his hair.

Jimbo watched them silently, knowing that a miracle had just happened, though he wasn't in on it. He still felt the warmth of what was happening and had to wipe at his own eyes, even as Nanny let go and allowed herself to feel what Samuel was feeling.

Buck Rogers TV, Motion Picture, Motion Picture Serial, Toys and Comic Books images