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.