Chapter 50

“Cassia! Up here!” I awoke to Keanu’s excited shouts. Shaking off the dream, it faded into the recesses of my mind like all the others.

He had gone scouting up the mountain over an hour before, leaving me to nap at the base of the mountain. Though it probably wasn’t safe for us to stay in the same area, let alone so close to our abandoned minivan, I had no choice but to obey my body’s desire for rest. The baby was growing at an alarming rate now, there was no denying it. I no longer appeared five or six months along, I looked due at any moment.

Pushing myself to sitting, I followed the direction of his voice and saw him several meters up the mountain, waving for me to follow him. Struggling, I managed to get myself to standing and waddled a ways up the path. Bending over, I stopped to catch my breath. The steep terrain was wearing me down fast.

“Here, let me help you.” An unfamiliar voice said to me. Whipping my head up, I saw a man, obviously Hopi Indian, extending his hand to me. His face was worn like old leather; he’d obviously seen his fair share of the desert sun. He wasn’t an old man compared to my grandmother, but he was likely in his mid-fifties. Beyond his tanned and weathered appearance, however, his eyes shone with the warmth of a hundred elders.

He must have sensed the alarm in my face when he quickly introduced himself. “I’m Tanaka. I live in these parts.”

“Cassia.” I responded warily, accepting his offer to help me up the hill.

“Come with me.” His voice was calm and soothing. Somehow he put me at ease, and stranger still, I felt like I knew him or that I’d seen him before.

Struggling up the side of the mountain, an excited Keanu stood before the mouth of a large cave. His happy expression melted into disbelief when he saw my swollen belly.

“What the…? You weren’t that big an hour ago!” His eyes were wide.

“Thanks.” I responded sarcastically, still trying to catch my breath from the jaunt up the hillside.

Tanaka took his backpack off, opened it and then offered me a leather bladder with what I assumed was water and a strip of jerky.

“Oh thank you!” I snatched them away with unintentional rudeness. Plopping myself down on a nearby boulder, I devoured the jerky and then nearly drowned myself as I poured the water down my parched throat.

“I see you’ve met Tanaka.” Keanu stated as he attempted to reach for the water bag but was met with a look of sheer contempt. Pregnancy does weird things to a person, especially when hungry or thirsty. Eventually, I shared the water…but not the jerky.

Nodding, Tanaka added as he pointed to Keanu. “Yes, I saw this one wandering around on my mountain and I came to check him out.”

“Your mountain?” I wasn’t sure if he actually owned this land or had merely claimed it.

“Yes, I have an acreage a few miles from here. I was out checking my traps.”

“What are you trapping?” Keanu inquired with interest. He really seemed to take an instant liking to this old fellow. I had to admit, Tanaka was rather soothing to be around, I wondered if he was a shaman or medicine man.

“Coyotes. They’re a nuisance.” He explained, then asked. “So what are you folks out here for? It’s dangerous to be wandering about the desert.”

Keanu and I exchanged a quiet glance, both of us unsure if we should trust a stranger. Tanaka picked up on our hesitation.

“You on the run?”

Sighing, I nodded. I was tired. Tired of running. Tired of lying. I just wanted to lie down, I didn’t feel well.

“Why?” Tanaka’s face was so…innocent. I felt guilty that I couldn’t spill every single detail to him. I wanted to release all the fear and anxiety I had bottled up inside me. Part of me so desperately desired to just blurt out everything, get it off my chest.

But how could I? I’d have to tell him why. I’d have to tell him that I wasn’t human.

It’s not every day, I’m sure, that someone meets a…a…what was I exactly? An alien? Yah, that would go over well, I’m sure. Mutant sounds a little better, sort of, but I wasn’t willing to call myself that. I may as well start calling myself freak if that was the case.

He must have sensed my internal struggle with divulging any more information and turned to walk into the cave.

“Come, let’s look around.” His native accent was strong; I wondered what tribe he was from. I would’ve recognized him immediately if he were from ours. He dressed rather modern for someone who lived in the desert. Wearing dark jeans and a short sleeve shirt, I suspected he had lived in the city at some point.

Our tribe wore more traditional clothing. We tried to make most of our own clothes from leather and light cotton fabrics. Of course we had to buy some of the fabrics from nearby towns but we preferred to be as self-reliant as possible. Some modern people mocked our ways but we preferred to live with the land rather than just on it.

After I moved away to university, I had to retrain my thinking to blend with society. I didn’t miss a lot of the traditional ways of the Hopi tribe but one thing I did miss was being surrounded by people who respected the land.

“We can hide here for the day and then travel by night. It will be harder for them to spot us…if nothing happens, I mean.” Keanu said eyeing my belly nervously

“If I may ask, where are you going?” Tanaka inquired, his voice smooth and relaxed.

I glanced at Keanu, wondering how much information he was going to supply this perfect stranger.

Keanu sighed and seemed to have an internal debate within himself, obviously thinking the same thing as me. After a moment, he blurted out. “We’re trying to find a certain cave…a special cave…where Cassia was born.”

The man paled instantly, his eyes moved to mine.

“You…were born in a cave? Here, in Sedona?”

My voice wavered as I answered. “Yes.”

Fumbling as he nearly fell over; he managed to sit down a large rock before falling. Staring at me with wide eyes, he asked a question I thought I’d never hear from a stranger…or anyone else for that matter.

Pointing to the center of his chest with a shaking finger, he asked. “Do you…have a white star…right here?”