Jumlin's Spawn (14 page)

“But I’m an elder,” Ten Bears said.

“You’re not
the
elders,” Yancey replied. “I
learned a long time ago to take it to the whole consortium.”

“I can go,” Oliver said, dragging on a sweater, “I
feel fine. And I owe it to Severin.”

“We can go with, Oliver,” Elfie suggested.

Ten Bears grunted his disapproval. “It’s a ceremony.
We need the artifacts. And we need Oliver to be there alone.”

“Why do you say that?” Yancey asked, squinting in
suspicion.

“He says that because he lies,” Molly Coddle’s voice
arose behind Ten Bears. She stepped out of Ten Bears’ shadow to
face the other three. “He is so old that he told the first lie. He
is the great deceiver.”

“That’s a lie,” Ten Bears replied, three harsh words
spoken in a roar.

Molly switched on her flashlight and pointed it at
Ten Bears. “Sometimes, Yancey, old Indian myths are so nonsensical,
they are true,” she said, as Wolfram Ten Bears, standing before
them, dissolved into a pile of blue ash.

Elfie felt Yancey grasp at her shoulder, a gesture of
shock he had never displayed before. A gesture that stunned her
more than Ten Bears turning into ash.

“Billy was Jumlin?” Yancey asked, with his eyes wider
than his words.

Molly smiled sympathetically. “It seems he knew you
three were the Wakinyan even before I did. He’d been waiting for
the three of you to realize it for a long time.”

Oliver stepped around Yancey to stare down at the ash
and then over at Molly. “He was trying to drag me back to the
Caves?”

“The Angel Caves no longer exist. Jumlin was trying
to collect the spawn and the artifacts, though I can’t say where he
was headed. Laughing Bear may be gone, but I’m sure the spawn
remain. Maybe somewhere deep in the earth.”

“And Severin?” Elfie asked.

Molly’s smile grew gentle. “Severin took the
journey.”

Yancey sighed softly, loudly. He translated to his
friends, “She means he’s dead.”

“Oh, my God,” Elfie whispered softly.

“My adopted grandson always knew he would never make
it out of the cave alive, my dear,” Molly said. “He also knew your
good hearts would make you die trying to save him. He couldn’t let
you do that. Your existence is more important than his. It’s more
important than mine.”

“That is a subject I’m not about to debate right
now,” Yancey said, looking behind him at the cottage behind them
with all their gear. “All I want to do is pack up and get us and
Oliver the hell out of here.”

Elfie reached into Yancey’s jeans, pulling out
Severin’s pouch. “We have a favor to do first, though. We owe him
at least that much.”

Yancey nodded. “That’s for damned sure. We go to see
Severin’s son, and then we return to the land of double
cheeseburgers and the Internet and 3-D TV. In other words, Yancey’s
Personal Paradise.” He walked toward their gear to begin gathering
it, but paused for a moment and swung around to add, “Oh, and
everything that happened here, didn’t happen here. And I never want
to hear the word vampire again.”

Elfie laughed, pondering how good it felt to do so.
“That’s okay, Yancey, we knew we could count on you to close your
eyes to reality.”

****

In a little trailer home southwest of Angel Peak, not
far from Yancey’s home, the three of them stood, watching the
residents from afar.

A little Sioux boy sat atop his mother’s knee, as the
woman shucked husks from corn then cracked the cobs in two.

“See the caves fall in this morning, Dad?” the Sioux
woman asked the old man seated behind her on his porch swing.

“Yuh,” he called back. “White man’s strip-mining the
mountains again, I expect.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” the young woman
replied.

Elfie opened the gate to the trailer house yard with
a great deal of trepidation, not wanting to interrupt the tableau
they had been observing. But, Yancey stepped forward, and she and
Oliver followed.

“I’m looking for Chaske,” Yancey said, then gestured
to his two friends. “We all are.”

The young woman looked hard at him. She flicked a nod
toward her little boy. “This is Chaske.”

Yancey drew the pouch from his pocket. He knelt
before the child. “I have a gift for you from your father,
Severin.”

The young woman shook her head. “There’s been some
mistake. My son’s father’s name is Yoma.”

“My father’s name was Severin,” spoke the old man
from the porch swing. He stood up slowly, reached for a cane, and
then made several short, hard-won steps toward them. “My
great-grandson here was named after me. I’m Chaske, too.”

Elfie blinked hard, trying to take in the whole of
the revelation. She swallowed hard. “Severin was
your
father?”

“Yes, but he has been dead for many years,” the old
man said softly. His eyes began to shine. “I’m afraid he couldn’t
have given anything to three as young as you. He gave his life to
save my mother long ago.”

“It came to us from a roundabout way,” Yancey
explained. He took two steps up to place it in the old man’s
weathered palm. “But, I know he’d want you to have it.”

A hard, throttled sob choked out of the old man, as
he stared at the item, his eyes full of a tenuous belief. He
clutched the pouch to his cheek. “His pouch. I know it. I remember
it. So well. Where on earth did you find it?”

“It was given to us to give to you,” Yancey said,
smiling. “Let’s say it came from a friend.”

“Thank you,” the old man said, still struggling with
tears. “Thank you so, so, so much.”

Elfie heard Yancey utter a few stray words of Lakota,
which sounded something like
you’re welcome
…
have a good
life
…
amen
.

She and Oliver had walked all the way through the
gate again, on the open road to Yancey’s house. Their jeep was
parked nearby. Yancey soon joined them.

As Elfie turned to climb into the jeep, she felt a
gentle tug on her hair from behind.

“So, Elfie,” Yancey said, with Oliver beside him,
“where do you go from here?”

“From here?” she asked, grinning. “I’m going to your
place. To take a shower and eat something that doesn’t have to be
rehydrated.”

“And afterward?” Oliver asked.

“Afterward, tomorrow or something, I’m hopping on a
plane to go back to New Orleans.”

Yancey and Oliver looked at each other. Yancey spoke
the soft, uncertain truth, “You are?”

Elfie tapped at his shoulder. “Well, yeah. Somebody
has to move my stuff back to South Dakota, don’t they?”

“Back to our place?” Yancey asked, smiling fully for
the first time in days.

“Yes, of course. And you two are going with me, you
testosterone-bearing men, you.”

Oliver laughed in reply. “Somehow, I knew we wouldn’t
get out of the heavy lifting.”

The End

Evernight Publishing

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